Norton Ghost 14.0 [Old Version]

Let me first say that I have used Nortons products for years. I currently have Nortons 360 on my PC. However, Norton Ghost is by far the worst Norton product I have ever tried. For starters it seem Norton isnt even sure what they want it to do. It doubles up on some of what 360 offers and makes for confusing choices in what to use when they overlap. Secondly, in what should be a straight forward program the interface is anything but. There are needless prompts and commands when a more simplistic design would have worked much better. start-up is a pain. It seems to take forever for the program to turn on. Instalation is also a little bit of a hassle as is customer support. I needed to call CS once and I got nothing close to the help I needed. I finally became so frustrated at the help that I hung up and went searching for answers. Finally I stumbled across an internet forum (not associated with Norton) and they helped me get it to work properly. Once I got it working it refused to back-up 100% stopping three times between 50% and 65%. I finally gave up, uninstalled it from my computer and put it under the desk. This program may work for some, but you will probably need an advanced computer degree and hours of free time. For me it was not worth the headache.

Ive used past versions of Norton Ghost to do backups and recoveries when they are needed and I have found the software to do what it says it will but its not the most intuitive product in the world. Having said that, I think that the older versions were better overall. The interface was very simple but it seemed to lighten the bells and whistles stuff and stuck to the basics. I think that with the new interface the product looks nicer but when you try to do too much and release a product too early it can cause problems. After reading other reviews regarding bugs and problems using the software I will have to say be careful. The backups that I did worked fine and I didnt have problems but with multiple warnings out there on the web I cant give this more than a 3 star rating. Ghost will do backups but theres too many warning signs to make this a recommended purchase. ***

Having been a user for Peter Nortons programs for more than 10 years right from Norton disk doctor to Norton PC tools, the Norton Ghost was a major let down. Right now, I am using Second Copy backup to backup data on my laptop onto my tiny external drive - it is simple, does basic things and easy to configure. Although I wish it had more features - the software works great and meets 80% of my needs. On upgrading to what seemed like a more professional better software - Norton Ghost 14, I very disappointed: - Very difficult to configure and use : the menu/UI is hard and not intuitive - My expectation is that I should be able to use this kind of software without having to go through any books/manuals. Even after looking at the help, it is not an intuitive peice of software - Buggy software : I get frustrated to see exception messages flying out from the UI when you are doing even the simplests of the tasks. Overall, stay away from this software - If you are a home user just wanting to backup your videos and photos, you should be able to get some freeware backup software or pay a small price of less than $30 to buy some decent software that really works.

For the most part it does what its suppose to do. Excellent for maintianing a Back-Up. Particular problem encountered was; this Ghost works within Windows, with something running in the background that we could not identify and shut off, it would not make a good copy we could use when copying a worn out hard drive to a new one. It would copy but not run (tried three times). Solution; Had to find a copy of older Ghost 12 which works outside of windows, it made the copy, worked fine copying the primary disc to new hard drive, worked first time. We then reloaded Ghost 14 to use as a backup program for new Backup hard drive, works well. This may be particular problem for what we had running, but Ghost 12 had no problem.

I bought Norton Ghost 14 to use to migrate my Thinkpad T60 to a larger hard drive. I spent all day trying, only to learn that this product wont do that! I ended up just downloading a free product, HDClone, and it worked perfectly. If you want to do routine backups, you can buy Ghost. If you need to clone a hard-drive with hidden partitions, look elsewhere.

Ive been using Ghost for backups for a few years now and this version works great. It has saved me from hard disk crashes and possible virus infections (restore to backup just prior to infection). The backups are encrypted, incremental and can be easily copied to portable media for off-site backups (portable USB hard disk). The file-level backup works but isnt as user friendly as the full disk backup. You can even mount the full backups as drive letters for read-only access, and you can import the backup images into VMWare should you decide to turn your backups into a virtual machine. Overall the product is not perfect, but it does work and I would recommend this for someone else to use.

I used this to ghost my os and it worked very well. It was a bit confusing in the beginning but worked out in the end.

i bought this product and it backed up my stuff fine. then it told me to make a recovery disk. thats when i found out it didnt work on 64 bit pcs. nortons tech support (after hours trying to get a hold of them) said I would need to find somewhere to order and download 32 bit drivers. also without this recovery disk you cannot restore your data. so if you have a 64 bit pc, dont waste your money here.

Norton Ghost 14 is a great backup tool that offers lots of potential for scheduling different types (files or full system; local or off-site) of automated backups. It is simple to use, yet offers every conceivable option one could need. As a bonus, it offers its famous ghosting ability to copy full hard drives accross, e.g. when moving to a new PC or upgrading a hard drive. An older Ghost saved me from the effects of a complete HDD crash, and since then I am hooked on Ghost. V14 is the same good product, but even better. GET IT, or face the consequences one day!

I must admit, Norton is getting better. I agree with most of the other comments below - this version of Ghost is better than previous versions, with much more efficient backup & friendlier user interface. But while it might do a quick, decent backup, it is not reliable in restoring your system. I simply cannot recommend any Norton/Symantec products. And for the life of me, I cannot understand how they have held onto a reputation of being the PC security/backup/recovery company. There are many, many better products out there that are free. Just to name a few security/recovery programs (that every PC user should use): ZoneAlarm or Comodo, AVG, a2, spybot search & destroy, AdAware, and every PC user should download and install the HOSTS files from MVPS-org. For backup, use a combination of these programs, and look on life hacker, boing boing, zdnet, and other forums for a backup/recovery system that works best for you. Do NOT rely on the Vista backup system, either. Or, buy a 1-touch external hard drive. Or perhaps my best advice would be, move to a Mac, or get Linux (I am especially enjoying the new Ubuntu version on my Asus Eee). But I strongly suggest avoiding the temptation to get ANY McAffee or Norton products. None of them work well.