Imaging disks with Microsoft Vista installed with Ghost 8.0

Vista and Ghost 8.0
I have had to image two failing disks with vista Home basic on. The process even using Ghost 8.0 was not as easy as XP!! I have imaged many disk over the years as an IT pro, this was the first time with Vista.

Connect up the new disk along side the disk to be imaged (using sata, IDE, usb caddies etc)

Boot the system using a Boot environment, Ghost or other.
I use BartPe boot disks with the Ghost 8.0 plugin, and Intel sata drivers added (see BartPe for information)

Open Ghost, and select the options box.
Set option within Ghost 8 gui –FRO, and then image all disk partitions.
(If you need more information on Ghost look on the web)
Wait a while the disk is imaged, swap old and new disks.
(Laptop PC now has the freshly imaged disk installed, old disk removed)

Boot from vista install DVD (set language) and then select repair option, if prompted to repair say no, we don’t want to repair at this stage.
You should see the Vista install you wish to sort listed, select with mouse (now highlighted)
Now select Next
Select Command Prompt from list of options.

Type bcdedit (press return)
This will show the contents of the BCD file (the new boot.ini)

Look at the device boot and osdevice

If the imaged disk is failing to boot the following can be run at the command prompt.

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot

BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot

BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

This worked for me, there are other references to vista failing to boot on the web following disk imaging using Ghost 8.0

I also ran Bootrec from the command prompt
Bootrec /fixmbr

Bootrec /rebuildBCD 
(plenty of advise on line about bootrec)

Vista should now boot, as with all advise online search around and verify that other folks have done some thing similar. Data is important back it up prior to imaging etc.

Helpful Sources on Ghost 8.0 and Vista

http://www.bobnedved.com/post/2007/11/How-to-restore-Vista-Ghost-Image-(Ghost-80-or-82).aspx

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/windowsgeneraldevelopmentissues/thread/443251a3-46e6-4868-8f9d-5fdc5b838343/