Creating a Ghost image usually results in a very large file (often 10GB to 50GB). Storing this on your local drive has risks:
By uploading your Windows 8 Ghost image to Google Drive, you ensure your backup is off-site, safe from hardware failure, and accessible from anywhere.
Despite being discontinued for Windows 8, the older "Google Drive for Desktop" (version 49.0 or earlier) works on Ghost 8.1.
Steps:
Sign-in: Use your Google account. Ghost users often face a blank login window (due to missing Edge/WebView2). Fix: Install WebView2 Runtime offline.
Cause: This is rare but happens if the Ghost image has corrupted Windows kernel files. Google Drive’s file system filter driver (gdfilter.sys) conflicts.
Fix: Boot into Safe Mode, uninstall the filter driver via Device Manager → System Devices → Google Drive Filter, then restart. ghost win 8 google drive
If official Google Drive refuses to run, use third-party clients:
Rclone on Ghost Win 8:
rclone config (follow OAuth setup)
rclone sync remote:Folder C:\DriveFiles --progress
You can automate with Task Scheduler (which usually remains intact on Ghost builds). Creating a Ghost image usually results in a
While classic Norton Ghost is discontinued, modern alternatives are faster and more user-friendly. For this guide, we recommend AOMEI Backupper Standard (Free version available) or Macrium Reflect Free.
We will use AOMEI Backupper for this tutorial as it offers excellent compression to save space on your Google Drive.