How to Create Bootable Memory Card or USB Flash Drive for Ghost

Hello my friends, How to create an image of your hard drive before you start using it, It's a good practice. Especially when you had to  spent hours installing the operating system on your system and all of your favorite applications. Symantec Ghost is user friendly. In case anything goes wrong with the operating system, you just need to restore the image using the Symantec bootable CD.

In case, we deal that problem with the new version of those small laptops. The Netbooks which usually don't come with a built-in CD-ROM drive. At the same time, almost every recent laptop/netbook comes with a card reader, and should have a USB port!

Now my guide will tell you how to create a bootable Memory card or a USB flash drive with Symantec Norton Ghost. The steps from this articles are based on Symantec Ghost 14. 

It's very helpful to Computer and Laptop Service Engineers. 

What you need?

• Symantec Ghost 14 bootable CD.
• A PC with CD/DVD drive.
• An Memory card, or a USB thumb drive. The size can be as minimum as 1 GB.
• An Memory card reader  or a USB slot (for thumb drive) 

Follow the steps. (Use this guide at your own risks)

1. First, make sure your CD/DVD drive is bootable. (set your CD/DVD drive is first boot device in boot option ).
2. Then For Memory Card or USB Flash drive. Make sure the Memory slot or the card reader is available. if you have a card reader, connect it to the PC and also insert the memory card.
    For USB thumb drive: Make sure the drive is inserted in the PC's USB slots.
3. Bootup the computer using the Symantec Ghost CD. On Windows XP, during the startup, you should see the prompt "Press any key to boot from CD...".
4. Once the Symantec Recovery startup is complete, you should see the main screen of Symantec Ghost 14 Recovery (similar to this image) 

      5. Select "Analyze" from the left menu.

     6. Then click on "Open Command Shell Window". A command prompt window will display.

     7. At this command prompt window, type: "diskpart" (without quotes) and hit enter. The
         prompt now changed to "DISKPART>"

     8. Now type "list disk" and hit enter. Now you see a list of all available disks. Base on the size of

         each disk listed, find the one that matching your Memory card (or) USB thumb drive and note its disk 

         number under "Disk ###". If you don't see your Memory card (or) USB thumb drive listed, verify it is 

         inserted or plugged in correctly (maybe you need to restart the computer and try again).

     9. Type "select disk <n>" (replace <n> with the Disk ### noted from the 8th step) then hit enter.

         Make sure to select the correct disk (your Memory card (or) USB thumb drive) as you will be erasing
         the drive. View that below image for example

10. Create a primary partition for the the disk by executing the following sequence of commands:
    clean
    create partition primary
    select partition 1
    
    
11. Set the primary partition active, type: "active" and hit enter
    
    
12. Perform a quick format with the following command:
    format fs=fat32 quick
    
    
13. Then type:
    assign
    exit
    
    
14. Your Memory card (or) USB thumb is now bootable and will act similar to a local hard drive. In order to boot this card with Symantect Ghost Recovery, copy all contents from the Symantec Ghost disc to the Memory card (or) USB thumb drive. Besure to copy everything including any hidden files/folders.
    
    
    Your Memory card (or) USB thumb drive is now bootable and will boot your laptop/netbook to Symantec Ghost Recovery utilities exactly the same way as of the CD (To boot with the card on your laptop/netbook, Don't forget to set your bios to search for the your Memory card (or) USB thumb drive in the boot sequence). 
    Keep Visiting