Reviews for Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Backup & Recovery - Complete Product - Standard - 1 User - PC - MPN: 10024696 
By member:
lenras
- Feb 19, 2005
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: Disk Cloning and backup capabilities Weakness: None Have used Norton Ghost 2002 and 2003 for the last several years for disk cloning and backup on CD's and DVD's. Never had a problem, always ran flawlessly. It has been GREAT!! 86% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
Glenn2PB
- Aug 13, 2003
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: Fastest most compatiable BACKUP and RESTORE! About 10 minutes per GB. Weakness: DOS interface is a little awkward, but it's DOS. I have never had a problem with Ghost. 83% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
Anthony008
- Jul 11, 2007
Solid backup utilityStrengths: Clear, step-by-step instruction. Back up entire hard disk or individual partitions. Works with Win 98, Win 2000, Win XP. CD and DVD containing the backup is automatically made bootable. Weakness: Doesn’t work with Windows Vista. But that isn’t really a weakness as this software was written in 2003. I didn’t try the backup to a hard disk. I only tried the backup to a CD/DVD writer both connected internally and externally. The internal method (connected to a IDE controller) works so smoothly. The external method (connected to a USB port using a SATA/IDE to USB converter), even though meant to be more convenient in some situations, requires some care. Here’s the tricky part: when Ghost restarts the computer in DOS, the DVD burner cable can not be plugged into the USB port, because it causes the computer to hang up. So before Ghost restarts in DOS, unplug the DVD burner cable from the USB port, and then plug it back in when you see the message “Starting PC DOS…” on the black-n-white screen. From that point on, it will work without any problems. The external method doesn’t work on older machines with CPU speed of 500mhz, though. In my own opinion, Ghost is better than Acronis in professionalism, quality, thinking, and language expression. It’s the solid product to own. If you have some DOS knowledge, you should have no problem using Ghost. If so many people can do it, you simply can not be an exception. 75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
tsmith35
- Jul 24, 2004
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: Easy to use, supports external drives (even firewire!), extremely powerful. Weakness: Not for folks who have trouble getting around on a PC. Does require knowledge of hard drives, partitioning, logical disks. We've used Ghost for years and years now. It's used by many companys' IT groups to quickly and easily duplicate a pre-configured PC's setup and software to multiple PCs throughout the company. 72% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
jeffscottleen
- Sep 28, 2002
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: One of the only software packages that will clone a complete hard disk Weakness: It doesn't work... and phone support costs $29.99 per call, almost as much as the software itself! Online help is useless despite their list of awards. I am an advanced intermediate user and downloaded Ghost 2003 from Symantec 2 days ago. It installed fine under WinXP. However, when I try to clone my hard disk, whether to another internal IDE hard drive, CD-RW drive, or external USB 2.0 hard drive, it crashes. I was told the error message (general exception 36000) is "machine specific" and could be due to practically any cause. Big, big help. Fifty bucks blown. Now, I'll take it up with my credit card. *UPDATE: Symantec honored 60 day moneyback guarantee and cancelled charge. 50% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
Nobesnickr
- Jul 27, 2004
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: Great options that you cantu use Weakness: Crashes everytime i try and run. Support was useless and wasted time. Generel Exception Error 36000!!! Brand new system with brand new backup equipment and software cannot make it work. VERY disappointed in Symantec, as their other products are highly praised. Get you **** together, please! 38% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
arstrube
- Aug 22, 2003
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: Can't comment, as it didn't work at all Weakness: Crashes. Under Windows 2000 on a Dell Inspiron 4000, it installs fine and the Interface comes up, but that's it. After this, every one of its functions crashes with a unspecified error, if you look into the log file, it's a division by zero. 27% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
Reply by member: ahwco
Apr 8, 2006 Ghost 2003 is excellent and infallable IF you use 2003 and in DOS mode'; That is, boot from a 98 boot disk and then copy or restore your XP or earlier versions you have created.
By member:
a155mm
- Jun 1, 2004
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003Strengths: It can be returned Weakness: There isn't enough space I am an advanced user (EE) and RTFM a number of times. It is just poorly designed software from the start. After crashing my home system it also crashed every other system it was installed on. Who ever said it was the user's fault works for Symantec. 24% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
Reply by member: kwijibo950
Nov 6, 2005 If you were an advanced user you would explain why it crashes. Do you really beleive this software crashes for every other "advanced user"? Your engineering degree should be revoked.  
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Symantec Norton Ghost 2003
Strengths: It has a number of backup options and all work perfectly.
Weakness: None, other than you must read the provided documentation to use it.
Oddly, Ghost 2003 comes packaged with System Works Professional 2004. This is quite possibly because, the product does work so well, improvement was not needed. I use it with all my networked XP system computers and it works flawlessly from my 4-1/2 year old Pentium III (800 MHz.)with its 30 and 80 Gb. hard drives (768 Mb. of memory) to my AMD 3000+ running at 2.249 GHz. with its four 80 Gb. hard drives and 1.5 Gb. of memory. It is also running excellent on an AMD 1800+ overclocked from stock to 2.0 GHz. with its 10 and 160 Gb. system drives and 256 Mb. of memory.
For those that do not comprehend instruction well, Ghost will be a problem but so will any other program that provides like functions. This is not a click and save program in all applications as it requires the user to interact during the system save or copy and again during its use during a system repair using it. But then no one ever said just because you have some computer time its use would be a left or right mouse click away.
Norton provides full documentation in the software which does fully explain its operation and all options.
Don't buy this if you have problems with System Restore and commands in Windows - your just not ready for it. When you are, it works great!
I use both the stand alone Ghost and the System Works Professional utility version, and both install easily performing as they should. Back up to a DVD or CDs RW/R and restoring from whichever is really simple if done correctly. Cloning drives and using Peer to Peer backup/restore are just two more of its functions.
UPDATE 11/26/04:
Ghost itself remains unchanged yet again for 2005, but the 2005 version includes new added features that are unavailable on the 2003 and 2004 versions.
94% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?