Automating the installation of Windows XP (or even Vista) can save any technician a lot of time. Typical installations from scratch can often take a couple of hours. Who has this much time when you have computers lined up. Not me, that’s for sure.

The conventional, Microsoft approved method of automating installation is to use their solution or the WAIK. WAIK means Windows Automated Installation Kit, provided off the Microsoft website.  Don’t get ahead of yourself though and start downloading this! I have an easier solution for you.  Make use of Norton Ghost and everything is very simple.

What you Need

• A Couple Blank CDs
• Norton Ghost 14.0 Software
• Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)

Sound interesting? Read on…

Creating an Image with Ghost

1. Spend the time to make a "perfect" XP machine such as installation, anti-virus software, updated patches, customized settings, and Installations of any productivity software.

2. When everything is perfect, install your legal copy of Norton Ghost 14.0 on the machine.

3. Plug in your Preformatted external USB hard drive pre-formatted external USB hard drive. Make sure its recognized and ready for files to be written to it.

4. Start up the Norton Ghost software and first create a Recovery CD within the software. You’ll require the recovery CD that came with Ghost, as well as a blank CD. This recovery CD basically allows you to boot a machine from CD, right into the Norton Recovery console.

5. After the CD is done, Go to Tasks – Run or Manage Backups then One Time Backup. Click through the menus and choose the C drive as an included drive. Next choose the destination folder to one you create on your External Hard Drive.

6. You should use standard compression and also check "Verify recovery point after creation". Be sure to click on "Advanced" as well, to set "Divide into smaller files to simplify archiving". Make sure you set the MB to under 4000, since most external hard drives use FAT which has a 4 gigabyte limit.

7 Click ok then Next twice and then Finish. The backup will begin and notify you if its verification and success!

Was that so hard? No way. It was super easy. And guess what You have a perfect installation image of Windows XP now! You can save those files anywhere a server, external hard drive, or NAS even to use for fresh installations later.

Recovering an Image with Ghost

Ok so your hard drive is messed up or you want to re-image an old machine. If the machine is different, just install Norton Ghost 14.0 on it before you re-image, plus in the external HDD, and then create a recovery CD just like you did in the previous section. Then continue as below (do not make an image of the bad computer though!)

1. Put in the Recovery CD and reboot your computer and plug in the External drive. Make sure you can "Boot to CD". Sometimes you may have to hold down F12 (typically) to get to the Boot Menu and choose your CD-ROM drive to boot from.

2. When the system boots in, you’ll see a familiar interface. It will have some options but you will click on "Recovery my Computer"

3. At this point it will often find your external HDD, but if not, you can find it on your own on the next screen. Point it to the recovery folder and files of the hard drive image and click next.

4. Always choose verification and automatic reboot.

5. Click next through and Finish. The computer will start to re-image and then reboot.

6. Come back in 15-30 minutes and you should see the Windows Login screen. Congrats you did it!

Conclusion

Learning to image hard drives is a huge time saver and does not need to be as complicated as Windows Automated Installation Kit. As you’ve seen above, you won’t need certifications or a rocket scientist degree to run through the steps. After imaging a couple of times, you’ll be able to do it this way in your sleep! If large-scale automation is what you want, Norton also has some more advanced options to look into for Norton Ghost as well.

In conclusion, beat the learning curb and try out Norton Ghost 14.0 before anything else. I think you’ll be pleased.

- James

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