Ghost imaging is the copying of the contents
of a computer's hard disk into a single compressed file
or set of files (referred to as an image) so that the contents
of the hard disk, including configuration information and
applications, can be copied to the hard disk of other computers.
An example of ghost imaging software is
Norton Ghost, a product from Symantec. Using this product,
you can clone (copy) the entire contents of a hard disk
to a portable medium such as a writeable CD or to a server.
The portable image can then be used to set up each hard
disk in other computers, automatically formatting and partitioning
each target disk. Ghost imaging is useful where one system
is to be replicated on a number of computers in a classroom
or for a team of notebook computer users who all need the
same system and applications.
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