Initially, GHOST supported only the FAT file system but could copy (not resize) other file systems by performing a sector-by-sector transfer. GHOST can copy the contents of one volume to another or copy a volume's contents to a virtual disk in VMDK or VHD format. GHOST can mount a backup volume to recover individual files. This provides an environment to perform offline system recovery or image creation. This can be accomplished by creating an ISO (to burn to a DVD) or a USB bootable disk, installed to a client as an automation folder or delivered by a PXE server. Its capture and deployment environment requires booting to a Windows PE environment.
GHOST is marketed as an OS deployment solution.
The backup and recovery functionality was replaced by Symantec System Recovery (SSR).īroadcom acquired Symantec's Enterprise Security business in 2019. The technology was acquired in 1998 by Symantec. GHOST (an acronym for general hardware-oriented system transfer ), now Symantec™ GHOST Solution Suite (GSS) for enterprise, is a disk cloning and backup tool originally developed by Murray Haszard in 1995 for Binary Research.
