We start off with a hard disk with Windows 98SE. Usually I just use our "Bible Image", and set the Windows partition to a minimal size, however one can make the Windows partition as large as one wants (and as large as the hard disk will permit), and any desired application programs could be installed. If an organization only occasionally had a need for the Clone and Ghost partitions, they could make the Win98SE partition the default partition, and install application programs to use the computer as a normal Windows computer most of the time.
The first step is to install Partition Magic and Boot Magic.
Once the two programs are installed bring up Partition Magic.
Select the C: HARDDRIVE, and click on the Operations menu, and select Resize/Move
Minimum Size is 753mb. I entered 1000 (1 Gig) and it decided to make it 996.2mb, which leaves 5153.7mb.
I then selected the Unallocated space, and in the Operations menu selected Create. In the new screen select Primary Partition for Create As, select Fat 32 for Partition Type, enter the label "Clone", and enter 2000 for the Size, which became 2000.3.
I then selected the Unallocated space, and in the Operations menu selected Create. In the new screen select Primary Partition for Create As, select Fat 32 for Partition Type, enter the label "Ghost", and left the size as 3153.4.
That now leaves us with the following setup.
I selected the General menu, and selected Apply Changes
And it brought up this screen:
It said there were "3 operatiions currently pending, Apply changes now?" Clicking Yes I saw:
I then clicked OK, and it rebooteded the computer. A single Bootmagic window came up, and
I pressed Enter to select it, and it went into DOS, showing:
and then it reboots. Once Windows came up I ran Boot Magic Configuration:
I clicked Add, and in the next screen selected the Clone partition, checked the Advanced box, and clicked OK.
In the BootMagic Menu Item Properties screen I filled in the name Clone and clicked OK
I then selected the Ghost partition and clicked OK. In the BootMagic Menu Item Properties screen I filled in the name Ghost and clicked OK
I selected Save/Exit. Boot magic was now set up. I shut windows down, and booted up a Clone 4.1 disk. Using Valet (PC Valet by John A Junod) on the Clone Disk I selected "command.com", and pressed "A" to change the Attributes.
I selected "N" for normal.
I then did the same thing for "io.sys"
and the same thing for "msdos.sys"
I used Valet to do the same thing on the Ghost floppy, making command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys have "Normal" attributes.
I rebooted the computer and selected Clone, and it came up with an error message Invalid System Disk, Replace the disk and then press any key, indicating there was no operating system there. I inserted the Clone disk and pressed a key, and it booted up on the Clone disk (while still leaving the hard disk set for the Clone Partition. I hit ESC to get out of the menu system on the Clone disk, and from the DOS prompt I typed copy *.* c:. I thought I should have been able to use the "/s" switch to also copy subdirectories, but for some reason that did not work, so I had to do a dir *. to see what subdirectories there were, and then use the md command to make those subdirectories on the "C" drive, and then copy the contents of each subdirectory on "A" up to the same subdirectory on "C". I then used Valet on the "A" drive to reset the proper attributes for the three files on both the Clone disk and the copy on the "C" drive, i.e. "command.com" was set to "R" (read-only), and "io.sys" and "msdos.sys" was set to "SHR" (system, hidden, read-only).
I then used the "Load IDE CDROM driver" on the Clone Disk (cdnow.exe from OnSpec Electronics) to load a temporary DOS CD driver, and then copied all of the files from our Master CD and the application files from our Refurb CD onto the 2 gig Clone partition. With a little tweaking of the menu files I had a partition which looked like the Clone Disk, but which had 2 gig worth of files available to be transferred with to the target drive, either in the Mobile Media Hard Drive Tray or via an Interlink (or LapLink) Cable, as described in Clone Partition
Just like with the Clone Partition, I rebooted the computer and selected Ghost, and it came up with an error message Invalid System Disk, Replace the disk and then press any key, indicating there was no operating system there. I inserted the Ghost disk and pressed a key, and it booted up on the Ghost disk (while still leaving the hard disk set for the Ghost Partition. I hit ESC to get out of the Ghost program, and from the DOS prompt I typed copy *.* c:. I thought I should have been able to use the "/s" switch to also copy subdirectories, but for some reason that did not work, so I had to do a dir *. to see what subdirectories there were, and then use the md command to make those subdirectories on the "C" drive, and then copy the contents of each subdirectory on "A" up to the same subdirectory on "C". I then used Valet on the "A" drive to reset the proper attributes for the three files on both the Ghost and the copy on the "C" drive, i.e. "command.com" was set to "R" (read-only), and "io.sys" and "msdos.sys" was set to "SHR" (system, hidden, read-only).
The Ghost partition was now set up to look just like a Ghost floppy drive, except it had over 3 gig of space to hold GHO image files. The first time I did this, I had to create those GHO image files by putting hard drives from refurbished computers with particular sets of application programs already installed in the Drive Tray and going from Disk to To Image, but once I got an Image Machine created with a number of Ghost images, I took a blank formatted drive and put it in the Drive Tray, and booted the Image Machine up to the GHOST partition, and copied all of the Ghost images to that drive. I then could take that drive to the new Image Machine I was creating, and with it booted up to the Ghost Partition, dropped to Dos and copied the Ghost images from that formatted drive.
I also took a blank formatted drive in the Drive Tray and booted the Image machine with a Ghost Floppy, and made a Ghost Image of the entire three partition Image Machine onto that drive, and then took the Drive Tray to the new Image Machine, and booted it booted to the Ghost Partition, and copied the Image Machine Ghost Image up to the Ghost Partition. That way I could make new Image Machines easily. Sometimes when restoring the image it worked immediately, but sometimes it got an error in the Boot Magic configuration, but I just inserted the Boot Magic Recovery Floppy and used it to rebuild the Boot Magic Configuration file.
The above describes how I created HelpingTulsa's first Image Machine. What I did built on the work of others who had preceeded me, particularly Gary Ludwig who created the original Clone Disks (such as Clone 4.1 and the original Master CD which consists of a number of what Gary calls Drive Images which could be transferred at the file level several ways. These "Drive Images" should not be confused with the Ghost Drive Images that Jim Erwin and I use most of the time. Jim Erwin even sets up what he calls an Image Machine in his lab with just the GHOST partition. That way he can use smaller Hard Drives. It takes at least an 8 gig drive to set up an Image Machine the way I do it, with all three partitions, and that means I usually need at least a Pentium II to build one. With Jim's Ghost-only approach, a Pentium I with a 2 gig drive is enough, and he has created a number of Ghost-only Image Machines for the students at Bethesda Adult Life Training Center to use when they refurbish computers. Some of Jim's GHOST-only Image Machines do not even use a drive tray; they just bring the power and IDE data cables out of the box to more easily switch disk drives. They even took a long SCSI cable, cut it down to the number of wires in an IDE cable, and connected IDE connectors to it, and they plug the cable into a drive without taking it from the computer being refurbished. That is somewhat dangerous, because IDE was not designed to work with a cable that long, but it seems to work most of the time.
Gary, Jim, and I each have slightly different ideas about what constitutes an Image Machine, and each of us has learned something from what the other two have come up with. I hope with these web pages to describe how we refurbish computers, so that others can learn from us. Once others have learned from us, I hope that they will reciprocate by letting us know what tools and techniques they have developed independently from what we have developed, and what improvements they may come up with based on our ideas.