Norton Ghost 12.0 [OLD VERSION]

List Price: $69.99 Discount Price: $26.99

Features:

• Backs up everything on your computer - digital music, photos, financial documents, applications, settings, operating system, etc. - in one easy step
• Recovers your system and data even when you can't restart your operating system
• Makes incremental backups to maximize space and save time
• Makes backups on the fly, without restarting your system
• Automatically creates an initial backup schedule based on your computer's configuration

Customer Reviews:

Ghost 12 doesn't work on Vista32 [Posted on 2008-02-13]
I've spent the last 5 days trying to get Ghost 12 to work on Vista32, and it just isn't going to happen. The first time I loaded it, Dec 2007, I got a good disk image ... that is the only time it has worked.

But in Jan 2008 they introduced an update that crashes it on Vista32. I've stripped at rebuilt my system 4 times, and each time I load Ghost 12, LiveUpdate downloads an update for Ghost. The update install crashes, gives a LiveUpdate error (LU1812), and Ghost will not backup the system. I've used Microsoft's ".msi logging", and the logfile for the install is full of errors. If you run Ghost after the failed update, Ghost runs to 95% completion (disk image), and then reports "Server threw an exception".

Many reports of this issue can be found via Google, but of course Symantec has no knowledgebase for Ghost, and offers no help or support. You can't even uninstall Ghost without removing all Symantec products and starting over.

When the LiveUpdate for Ghost crashes, if you follow the link in the error window (for LU1812), the Symantec website will download a tool, ask you to repeat all of the above so they can collect a log. I've collected the log 3 times, but each time the log is complete, the transmission of it to Symantec crashes.

I've used Ghost for 6 years, but I won't buy it again. It doesn't work, and these guys don't even test it, let alone support it on Vista.

Ghost 12 Works Like it is Supposed To [Posted on 2008-02-16]
I bought Ghost 12 to protect my data in the event of a catastrophic event, never anticipating one would occur. I recently lost the hard drive on my primary work lap top computer. Fortunately Dell replaced it free of charge and paid for the shipping. Unfortunately they can not replace all of my programs and data. I had been backing up via Ghost 12 to an external hard drive and that saved me countless hours of reinstalling drivers, software, operating systems etc. Ghost 12 worked like a champ. Once I replaced the hard drive I simply booted from the disk that came with Ghost 12. Note: I recommend you get Ghost 12 with the disk as it is what you use to recover your computer. If Ghost 12 came installed, make sure you make the recovery disk before you need it.

While I have read a number of less than stellar reviews, I can't say enough about Ghost 12. My computer looked just like it did before the hard drive crashed and Ghost did it in about ten minutes.

I really never thought this would happen to one of my computers but backed up just in case. I am very glad I did now. Having the faulty hard drive replaced was great but what was on the hard drive was just as important. I recommend Ghost 12 if for nothing other than insurance against losing your hard drive and all that is on it.

Good when it works, terrible when it doesn't [Posted on 2008-03-10]
This product installed and worked properly on my new Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit PC. It was the first item installed after the Windows load.
This product would not install on my fully loaded Windows XP Pro PC. I jumped through all the hoops and it still would not work.

Resources Hog, if it Works at All [Posted on 2008-04-12]
I bought Norton Ghost 12.0 to back-up my Vista OS PC about 6 months ago. Once I figured out the cumbersome interface and strange ways to configure the back-ups -and I consider I have above average knowledge of software and PCs-, an update Norton delivered about December time made Ghost to stop working, having me to uninstall it using a Norton removal tool, which by the way also removed the Norton AV program, forcing me to reinstall everything again.

After that, it worked fairly well but the amount of space it takes for HD imaging and back-up of files is ridiculous. My 500 GB HD has only about 150 GB of data and software installed. I'm using Ghost to back-up to a 300 GB external WD HD. Well, the space it takes for every restore point on the imaging time is such that I can never pass the 3rd restore point before my external HD is full. Creating and image of a 150GB hard drive takes way over 300GB after three restore points. What about nice compression? What kind of software is this? Then , the back-up `clean-up' is a joke. Deleting old restore points will free minimal space on the external HD, forcing me to go and manually delete all the files associated with that back-up. Besides, there is no way to delete old back-ups of files, only restore points which as said works poorly. That without mentioning the issue of not supporting FAT32 HD formatting, which gave me a lot of headaches until I was forced to convert the HD to NTFS

Overall, this is a bad product. I had plenty of issues in a 6 month use period and I was never able to use it the proper way, it was always a patch-work. But because at the end it did some backing-up of my files, I give it two stars. Now to wait for the Acronis True Image I ordered and cross my fingers I can remove Ghost from my system without issues

Blue screen of death bad_pool_header - no help from norton [Posted on 2008-05-19]
The title says it all. Every time I try to do a backup to an external usb drive with 450G or space I get a blue screen and the bad_pool_header error. NO help with out cash at Symantec. I have XP Pro with 2M of ram.

Click here for more details and discount information...