transfer from Old to New Computer

Capricorn

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
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I know that Ghost and Acronis software are good for creating a Drive Image, and transferring it to a new drive on the same computer, but what about creating an image and transferring it to a completely new computer?
 
Whenever I move to a new hard drive, I use that opportunity to install a fresh operating system. An image will keep any problems you already have. Also, I think that your image will only work on your old computer, since the hardware is different.

Backup all your data and install a new system on your new machine.
 
Capricorn said:
I know that Ghost and Acronis software are good for creating a Drive Image, and transferring it to a new drive on the same computer, but what about creating an image and transferring it to a completely new computer?

Unless the system you are transfering to is a clone of the first system it will not work. There will be driver issues, and if it even boots windows will protest that it has been molested (major hardware change) and will ask you why and to calll big brother and explain why.
 
There is a way but it is high risk it won't work.

-Image the HD in the old system.
-Boot with just the image HD installed.
-Use Ccleaner.exe to uninstall the software drivers for the hardware (vid, sound etc.) and set the video to 800x600.
-Uninstall all of your hardware devices in Device Manager, including MB chipset functions.
-Move the HD to the new system and it's copy of windows will see all new hardware and start a new HW found effort.

If you get lucky you will have found and removed all vestiages of the old drivers and you will get a clean setup of Windows on the new machine with all your programs and data intact. Sometimes this goes well sometimes, not.

If you are going to a system with an identical or similar MB chipset then chances of success are high.

Note - as mentioned above Windows will cry rape and force a voice activation. Just tell them you have upgrdade the MB, CPU and RAM and they will ask if the new system is the only system using this copy of windows. The correct answer is obvious. ;-)

You can then do a windows key replacement on the old machine at your leisure since both will be activated.
http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/Wind...ewer-XP-Key-Changer/3000-2094_2-10349010.html

Plan B is similar but when the new HW found fails or if the new system performance is sluggish you do a repair install of windows on the new system.
Then do a complete defrag of the HD. You will loose your program usage since the registry will be wiped but you can install over the old ones and most data and configurations will be intact.

Plan C - if A and B don't work out or sound like too much trouble, reformat and do a clean windows install on new system. Then use the windows files and settings transfer function to copy all data and setup information from the old machine to the new machine across a LAN connection.
 
I agree with tom9042 on this one. Imaging a new system from an old one is just asking for trouble.

Just copy what you need off the old machine. It's more work but it the system will be alot more stable. And not to mention your Windows activation won't get messed up.
 
Yeah, transferring from one PC to another is not a good. You will have conflicts with the Hardware and such. It is like Tom said, a good idea to just do a fresh install.
 

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