When it comes to using Ghost (Symantec Ghost 11.5) to create an image of a device that dual-boots both Windows and Linux, there are some ‘tricks’ that you need to be aware of in order to create an image set that can be distributed to other devices, or at least restored to the original device.
A device that dual-boots both Windows and Linux has a particular partition set; A set of partitions for Windows, and a block of storage used for LVM (Logical Volume Management). A disk with this geometry makes it difficult for Ghost to understand what data is on the disk, and how best to deal with it when creating and restoring images. Simply running a basic clone will result in numerous erroneous additional partitions, and image restoration will fail (after a very long restore time).
To help Ghost create a valid image set, there are some switches that instruct the application how to work with the disk geometry and its contents. For example:
ghost32.exe -ib -ial -ignorelvm -ntexactThe switches explained:
-ib: When creating an image or copying disk to disk, the -IB switch (Image Boot) forces a copy of the entire boot track; not just the boot sector. Use this switch when applications, such as some boot-time utilities, use the boot track to store information.
-ial: Forces a sector-by-sector copy of Linux partitions. Other partitions are copied normally.
-ignorelvm: Stops Ghost from cloning logical volumes as physical partitions. This switch will make both the clone a lot slower and the image larger, as Ghost will copy the LVM partitions raw sector-by-sector.
-ntexact: Enable an exact restore of the NTFS source volume layout. This switch tells Ghost to restore the entire NTFS volume without changes to any clusters. This means that Ghost will also attempt to restore the Master File Table ( MFT ) without changes. This switch should be used when creating and restoring an image.
The use of this switch is not recommended due to the fragmentation that can occur on the volume after the image is restored. This switch should be used only when creating and restoring an image.
Further details about Ghost switches are available from the Symantec support site: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH130961.html