If you want to create an image of your hard drive, you can do it in several ways. One way to do this is to boot the computer from a Symantec Ghost diskette and create the image using multicast, unicast, disk-to-disk, or peer-to-peer.

So if you want to create an image, the first thing you need to do is create a Symantec Ghost boot disk. This boot disk does not boot to Windows, but it does boot the Symantec Ghost utility to DOS.

How to create an image using the GhostCast server?

GhostCast Server is a utility of Symantec Ghost software. Using the GhostCast server you can create images of computers on the network or you can restore an image to several connected clients at the same time. All you have to do is boot all clients with a Symantec Ghost boot disk, then accept all connected clients into the GhostCast server utility, and then simply cast the image to all connected clients.

You must first make sure that the computer you want to create an image of is connected to the network. Of course, the GhostCast server computer must also be connected.

Boot the client from the Symantec Ghost boot disk.

Now go back to the GhostCast server computer and start the GhostCast server utility by clicking Start -> Programs -> Symantec Ghost -> GhostCast Server.

Here you need to enter a session name in the Session Name box.

Then enable the ‘Create Image’ option to create an image of the clients.

Then click the ‘Browse’ button to browse for a place where the image should be stored.

If you want to create an image of the entire client hard drive, select the ‘Disk’ option. If you want to create an image of a particular partition, select the ‘Partition’ option. (In this example I describe how to create an image of a disk).

Then you click on the ‘Accept Clients’ button.

Now the GhostCast server waits for clients to connect.

You can see there are no clients connected so far.

Now go to the client that starts in Symantec Ghost and click (or keyboard) ‘GhostCast’ -> ‘Unicast’.

Enter the session name exactly the same as in GhostCast Server.

Leave the ‘Discovery Method’ option set to ‘Automatic’ and click ‘OK’.

The next thing you need to do is select the drive that an image should be made of.
and click ‘OK’.

Here you can choose whether the image should be compressed to a safe space on the disk. Options are ‘No’, ‘Fast’ or ‘High’ compression.

I recommend that you choose ‘Fast’ compression.

The next thing to do is to confirm the image creation by clicking ‘Yes’.

Symantec Ghost is now waiting for you to click the ‘Submit’ button on the GhostCast server.

So, go back to the GhostCast server computer and click the ‘Submit’ button.

After clicking ‘Submit’, the image will be created and stored in the location of your choice on the GhostCast Server.

You can see the details on GhostCast Server.

After the GhostCast progress is 100%, your image will be created and you can shut down the GhostCast server.

You have successfully created your Ghost image using GhostCast Server!