The best offense is a good defense... Ghost

I've noticed several spyware/malware/virus threads lately and I'd like to throw out a simple solution/suggestion. As an IT guy for a large practice in Nashville we get several melicious problems every few weeks. Personally I don't/won't waist my time sorting out the problems. Instead I back up the users data and then reimage their pc. This is what I'm suggesting for you guys to do. Next time you run into a virus issue just back up your data to a usb drive and reinstall windows. Spend some time getting everything just right with all the updates. Then use Norton Ghost to make an image of your maching and store it on a bootable thumb drive. Now the next time you have pc problems just throw that thumb drive in and wait 10-20 minutes and you've got a brand new pc again.

It's such a great idea we should get Billy Mays here to sell it.

I personally have my machines ghosted, but only use them once a year when I do a yearly service.

 

Agree - It's good practice.

I've been using Acronis True Image for that purpose too. System is all clean, backed up and ready in the event of a hardware or system issue. Have a secondary drive too just in case the first one goes bye bye.

 

Anyone know the best way to do this? I've been looking at ghosting my old laptop to a partition on an external HD (old laptop's hd is a little over 85 gb, partition on external is 95gb) and I haven't found anything that's been able to do so.

I suspect Norton Ghost will, but I dislike the idea of paying $70 for a single operation. Took it to Geek Squad and they said they wouldn't do it for me--or at least, not for less than $70. I've asked around and none of my friends have it.

I have a new laptop whose hd has about 250 gb available, and about 249 gb are used. I've set up the external with two other partitions, External with abt 400gb and ExternalS with abt 300gb. I've tried using some freeware that tried to create an image file on External S, but was unable to complete due to some bad sectors.

 

Macrium Reflect Free Edition

 

Will try, thanks!

 

Good advice. I reformat my laptop a few times a year. I keep and up to date backup of everything.
If I can't trouble shoot a problem in 15 minutes, time to break out the restore or windows cd.
One of the many things learned from living with girls.

 

Acronis True Image Home 2009 is $30 at Newegg.

All my machines have a partition set aside just for image files, much faster and easier than restoring from external drive. Put in rescue CD, point to image file, click and 7 minutes machine is back to normal. I do have the image files saved to other internal/external drives, though.

 

I just did and it apparently works OK on my Vista 64K Home Edition. I went ahead and purchased the full Macrium version to schedule
automatic "differential" backups (just the files modified since the mirror image) daily to an external hard drive via firewire.

I'm hoping it all goes smoothly.

 

Here's a question for you guys. Since I think Macrium will work to back up my server, how can I easily
back up my laptops to the server over the wireless network? They don't have a lot of data on them, so
why not back them up to the server, then have the server back up to the external hard drive?

 

Create a folder on the server and share it. Point the software to backup to that folder. Wireless can be a little iffy with dropped packets. Make sure you have it set to confirm the backup.

 

It's a great idea but remember an image is an image. Anything added/changed after the image was created will be lost (service packs, updates, anti-virus/spyware signatures, software, printers, personal settings, etc).

A plain and simple (although sometimes unpopular) solution to spyware/malware/virus problems is don't give admin rights to users

 

Many imagers allow for incremental and differential updates to image files.

 

It isn't that it is unpopular, it is a problem with certain applications. Most in house applications are developed under admin rights, and usually require certain admin rights to function correctly. It is sad sad sad. If you could develop in an admin environment, simulating a user/restricted environment that would be helpful. But that never happens.

 

My experience with that was mostly an registry change or edit. Working with the software developer can point you in the right place.

Better yet, have the developer add a web-based interface to the application and run it on the server.

 

You can still end up with lost personal settings and configurations.

When it comes to threats I prefer an offensive/defensive strategy instead of waiting to counter-attack.

But... if compromised then imaging as a wipe and reload is the best solution, although it can add up pretty quickly.

From Symantec's License Agreement:

You may:
A. use one copy of the Software on a single computer. If a greater number of copies and/or number of computers is specified within the Documentation or the applicable transaction documentation from the authorized distributor or reseller from which You obtained the Software, You may use the Software in accordance with such specifications;
B. make one copy of the Software for back-up or archival purposes, or copy the Software onto the hard disk of Your computer and retain the original for back-up or archival purposes;
C. use the Software on a network, provided that You have a licensed copy of the Software for each computer that can access the Software over that network;

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/about/media/ghost14_eula_2008.pdf

 

Ahh this thread brings back memories! I started using Ghost from the 1st release b4 Symantec bought them out! Back in the day we would use bootable floppy disks with network/cdrom drivers to install the customer images off the network or cdrom and now here we are, getting them off thumb drives!