I thought I would start by sharing with you some of the methods I use to keep my computer system clean and easy to manage. Since I review programs, I cannot afford to have a system with problems nor can I afford to redo it every few months. I rely on two Symantec programs to keep my system as smooth running as possible. I use Norton Anti-Virus and Ghost 2002. I have read all the horror stories about anti-virus software causing problems, but I have never had any. As long as I remember to disable it when I am loading software, I have never had a conflict. Actually, even when I haven't remembered to disable it, I don't believe I have had problems, but I do remember to disable it 99% of the time - only my two dogs are perfect, at least that's what they keep telling me.

I, also, manually update my virus definitions daily. I read on one of Symantec's web pages that it is updated automatically on Wednesdays, if you have it set for automatic updating, but there are new virus definitions posted almost daily. Just recently I read that sometimes there is more than one version per day and that is why the naming system is being changed.

I have found this to be beneficial. Coming back from a two week trip this spring, Norton Anti Virus Software caught 23 virus infected files. Soon after that, it caught one that was only two days old. In other words, if I had not kept up to date with manual virus definition loading, I would have allowed a virus to infect my machine. Every morning, I check the Symantec website and download a new virus definition if there is one and then transfer it to all our machines through our network. I then install it on the machines. We have only had one virus on any computer ever and that was before we used Norton for e-mail many years ago.

The second way I protect my machines is through the use of Norton Ghost. This program can be complicated to initially set up. I will list the documents on the web that are helpful and explain why and how I use the program. But first, I need to say, it is not fail proof. I first learn about it from the store that builds my systems since we did a lot of experimentation on one of my systems, and we did not want to keep starting from scratch. If you are not familiar with Norton Ghost, what it can do, among other things, is to create an image of a drive or a partition. This is not a backup, but a direct image that is to be put back exactly as it appeared on the same drive. Why do I say it is not fail proof? Because occasionally the image fails to go back. Fortunately, The store had suggested I make two images each time in case one was corrupt. It can happen even though it is rare.

As I stated, initially setting up Ghost is complicated. When I first used it, I was not aware of these problems because I didn't have a lot of programs on my C- drive. I only make a ghost of my C-drive which is a separate drive and NOT a partition. However, if it were a partition, I could still do a Ghost image. My C-drive only contains programs. (My data is stored on other drives. I, then copy all data to other locations so I have duplicates. I don't Ghost it because I keep daily copies only of what I have changed.)

Getting back to why I didn't have problems initially. Ghost works from DOS. One creates a floppy disk and boots from it. The default version of DOS that is used by Ghost is PC DOS. PC DOS will not work on large drives. Once I discovered this, I was really upset because I didn't know what to do. I finally found literature on Symantec's website. http://service4.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2000092514554025 but the process was still confusing. Anyway to simplify it, I found I had to make a boot disk from a machine that contained a version of MS DOS 7.01 or later. That machine had to be a Win 95b or Win 98 machine. Fortunately at that time, I had a win 98 machine so I formatted a number of these disks. The reason I am writing out these steps is because I had to find them in a number of locations. There are two ways to do this. According to the Ghost 2002 User's Guide page 24:

"1 Insert a blank floppy disk into drive A of a Windows 9x computer.
2 Double-click the My Computer icon.
3 Right-click drive A then click Format.
4 Click Copy System Files.
5 Insert the formatted floppy disk into drive A of the computer on which the Ghost Boot Wizard is running.
6 In the Ghost Boot Wizard, in the DOS version window, click Get MS-DOS."

In the above directions, there are a few steps between their step 5 and 6 during which other choices have to be made. The discrepancy can cause confusion.

I did this in a simpler manner. It can be done from either a Win 95b machine or any version of a Win 98 machine.

1 Go to a C Prompt.
2 Type in c:>format a: /s to format the disk.
3 Start the Ghost Boot Wizard with the disk still in the A drive. (This step is the same as step 5 of the above sequence.)

Since I was using Windows 2000 as my main operating system, I created my boot disk from that system. In other words, I installed Ghost onto one of my Windows 2000 machines and continued the process from there. The boot disk must be made from the machine where Ghost is installed. The Ghost program is only used to create a Ghost disk of which there are different varieties. But, I found I could also use it under Windows XP because it is using MS-DOS.

The following pictures illustrate the creation of a Ghost Boot Disk.

1 To create a standard Ghost Boot Disk, choose the first option, the one highlighted in blue.

2 Ignore this screen for a standard boot disk unless you want special support.

3 This is where the MS-DOS is selected. It is very important to remember to select it.

4 This screen reminds you to make sure you have put the floppy in drive A if you haven't done it already.

5 You are now actually going to reformat the floppy disk. You will not lose any information because you have already transferred the necessary information to the Ghost program. Now you are actually creating the Boot Disk. So, yes, it will reformat this disk and write other information onto it.

6 This screen shows the contents of the Ghost Boot Disk.

7 Finally the formatting of the Ghost Boot disk is complete and the information is written onto it. Now the actual Ghost Image can be created.

The following URL is from Symantec's site and gives more information on other methods of creating a Ghost Boot disk. http://service4.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2000042409333225

To create a Ghost Image, I first make two folders on different drives of my computer. One cannot Ghost to oneself, so I do not Ghost to drive C. Also, the drives that you use to Ghost to, i.e.:, write your images to must be fat drives, they cannot be NTSF drives, but you can Ghost from an NTSF drive. My C drive is formatted NTSF, but the drives I store my Ghost images on are fat 32 drives. [The following pictures had to be taken with a digital camera from the computer screen since the images were not created in windows and, thus, any form of print-screen that I had couldn't be used. I know the quality of the print-screens leaves something to be desired.]

1 Restart the computer with the Ghost Boot Disk in the floppy drive. Do not worry when it says " starting Win 95 or Win 98." It says that because that is the system used to initially create the MS-DOS disk.

2 Follow the on line prompts. When a box comes up with the word Options, click on it. The first heading is Span /CRC. Under it, check the boxes Spanning and Autoname. Click Accept. Then, navigate to the Save Settings tab and accept it. Click OK. This writes this information to the floppy so you will not have to do this again. Now you are ready to start and the rest is easy.

3 Navigate from Local - Disk - To Image.

4 You will select the drive you want to capture (in this example drive C). But it will not say drive C. It will only show a size. Once again, if drive C is a different size than the other drives it helps.

5 Find the drive that has the folder you created on it for the image. The reason I created a folder is because if the image created is large, it will be in two parts. Since I checked automatic spanning and naming, I do not have to worry in creating it or in putting it back. Thus, if it is in a folder, it can never be overwritten. Now once again, a naming issue. Remember, you are working in DOS. If some of your drives are NTSF, your other drives will be labeled differently, so don't be surprised if the folder you created to store your image in is on a drive letter that is different than you supposed.

6 When the screen comes up that asked you about the compression, I always choose high and have not had problems.

7 Once you have had a "Successful Dump," I always create another Ghost image in my second folder on another drive. Once that is completed, I choose Quit and Continue. I have had problems with Reset Computer with my computer locking up.

Restoring the Image is not hard. The process differs only in a few ways.

1 Navigate from Local - Disk - From Image.

2 Find where the image is stored and select the folder and file.

3 Put in the special number that appeared on the splash screen.

4 Choose the Destination drive. This is where life can become scary. I once ended up with two C drives and wiped out a whole data drive because they were both the same size and I got confused. That is why it is important to have the C drive a unique size.

5 The last step is an affirmation of whether you actually want to overwrite the drive in question.

As I stated earlier, one can do this with partitions as well. If you do this, first make an image of the whole drive. Then subsequently, make an image of the partition. I have a second SCSI drive that is 40 GIG. 20 of the 40 is drive D on which I have Windows XP. I have Windows 2000 on drive C. The other partitions of the 40 GIG drive are E and F. I temporarily transferred all my data from E because I didn't want to use up space and made a drive image of the 40 GIG drive. Then I made a partition image of just drive D. Theoretically, I should be able to just restore the Partition Image, but since I am restoring an operating system, I have been told that there is a chance it might not work, for that reason, I created an image of the whole drive. I have had to restore the operating system and all the programs that go with it, of course, and I was able to do this successfully by just restoring the appropriate partition.

That is all there is to it. Actually it is not complicated. If you follow it step by step, you should succeed. But be aware, accidents can happen. As I mentioned earlier, I have had Ghosted images that claimed to have been both successfully created and successfully restored, but would not come up on the screen in Windows. For that reason I always make two identical images. I, also, found that if this happens, I can sometimes use the image that didn't work the first time if I turn my machine completely off first, and then start the restoration process with Norton Ghost.

I use Norton Ghost all the time and it has saved me a huge amount of work. It also gives me incredible flexibility in installing and playing with various programs without worrying about how they could affect my system.