Ghosting is the process of copying a computer's hard drive either to or from another computer.  You do this by making an image file, which is a file that contains all of the computer's information, and you save the image file on the server.  You can copy a hard drive to the server for later use in setting up an identical computer, or you can copy the image file from the server to another computer to make it just like the image file.
 

Creating a Boot Disk:

In order to run the ghost program, you need to make a boot disk.  This disk will boot the computer into the ghost program.  This disk has to be specially made according to the network card that is in the machine.  This is because the ghost program has to recognize the network card in order to link it to the server.  Otherwise, the server will not be able to send any information, namely the image file, to the computer being ghosted

Before creating any boot disk, you first need to determine what kind of network card is in the computer.
 

1. Go to Start, Programs, Symantec Ghost, and Ghost Boot Wizard.
2. Choose the "Network Boot Disk" then click next.
3. Choose the network card in the computer then click next.  If the network card in the computer is not listed, you will have to create a custom disk.
4. Choose the type of client to be "Symantec Ghost" which is the default and click next.
5. Choose "DHCP will assign the IP settings" which is the default and click next.
6. Chose where the floppy disk is.  It will usually be A: which is the default also.  Leave "Format disk(s)" and Quick format" checked.  Click next.
7. It will ask you to confirm the details.  Click next.
8. The format screen will pop up.  Click Start.
9. A warning box will pop up.  Click OK.
10. The "Format Complete" box will pop up when formatting is done.  Click OK.
11. Click close on the format screen and the creation of the boot disk will start automatically.
12. When it is complete click finish and the window will close.
13. Your boot disk is now ready.  Now you need to set up the server.

Creating a Custom Boot Disk:

Before creating a custom boot disk, you must first load the driver for that network card onto the server.  The driver is a file with a .dos extension and it can usually be found on a cd-rom that came with the card or it can be found on the website of the manufacturer.
 

1. Go to Start, Programs, Symantec Ghost, and Ghost Boot Wizard.
2. Choose the "Network Boot Disk" then click next.
3. Click the "ADD" button instead of a network card.
4. Choose "NDIS2 Driver" as the template type.  Click next.
5. At filename, choose browse and find the .dos driver file that you copied onto the server.  Choose the file and press open.  Then type in the name of the driver which is usually the name of the file before the .dos.  Click OK.
6. Type in a name for the template (the type of boot disk created with this driver) and click next.
7. Continue on creating a normal boot disk from this point using the template you created as the driver that you select.

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