I have an old dell dimension 2400 with an 80G ATA hard drive. I've decided to upgrade to a newer computer and want to 'image' my old drive to the new, 250G SATA hard drive in the new Dell. I've been running Ghost 10 on the old computer since I've owned it. Can I use Ghost 10 to copy my entire hard drive to the new 250G hard drive so that everything 'looks' the same on the new computer? Keep in mind I cannot put both drives into the same computer (ATA vs SATA). Both computers have Windows XP OS running. If Ghost 10 can't do this does Norton offer a product or service that will?
Thanks redk.
I woudn't think Windows should be a problem as both computers have licensed copies of XP. My Ghost 10 backups have been done to an external USB harddrive, so I was hoping I could just install Ghost on the new computer and somehow do a system or file restore over USB to the new computer. Do you know if something like this would work? Do you know if the Internet backup service that Norton provides would be useful? Maybe I could just backup the old computer to the web, then restore from the web to the new computer?
Thanks for the input.
reddeuce,
It depends how much you want the old OS on the new computer. The main issue is the old OS may need AHCI drivers to boot on the new computer (if the Dell BIOS is set to AHCI. Have a look and let us know). These can be installed to the restored non booting OS on the new computer by using TBOSDT Pro. If the Dell BIOS is set to ATA or Compatible you may not need drivers.
If this was my computer I'd resize (smaller) the OS partition on the new HD to create unallocated space. Then restore the Ghost 10 image to the unallocated space and set up a dual boot with a third party boot manager. Next, try to boot the new XP and assuming it fails, install the AHCI controller drivers.
Alternately you could delete the OS on the new computer and restore the Ghost 10 image and not have a dual boot. This is the easier solution but I'd image the OS partition on the new computer before deleting the OS. If the restored old OS doesn't work out you can restore the image of the new OS and your new computer is back in action..
Going from single core to a multi-core processor can cause problems too, I noticed the old system has a single core CPU.
I guess we need to know:
1) Does the new system have a multi-core CPU?
2) In the BIOS of the new system under SATA, is there a setting for IDE mode or somthing similar.
3) What were you planning on doing with the installed operating system on the new system?
4) Does your external USB drive have enough space to hold images for both systems?
Actually, it may possibly need 2 complete images of the old system and 1 image of the new system.
5) At the Dell website, is there a complete set of XP drivers availible for download for the new system?
I also wouldn't be too concerned with licensing at this point, your new system should have a sticker with a license and valid key for XP on it and if needed you could use the phone activation methoud to re-activate it.
Dave
I have an old dell dimension 2400 with an 80G ATA hard drive. I've decided to upgrade to a newer computer and want to 'image' my old drive to the new, 250G SATA hard drive in the new Dell. I've been running Ghost 10 on the old computer since I've owned it. Can I use Ghost 10 to copy my entire hard drive to the new 250G hard drive so that everything 'looks' the same on the new computer? Keep in mind I cannot put both drives into the same computer (ATA vs SATA). Both computers have Windows XP OS running. If Ghost 10 can't do this does Norton offer a product or service that will?
DaveH wrote:
1) Does the new system have a multi-core CPU?
Good point. TBOSDT can change a uni-processor HAL to a multi-processor HAL.
Thanks all for the help. I backed up the new computer with Ghost, then 'restored' the old computer image to the new computer. It booted, but had some real issues, not the least of which is that the old computer used a PS2 mouse and keyboard, the new computer doesn't. With no input devices available the only option was to restore the original image of the new computer, which Ghost did flawlessly.
I ended up purchasing LapLink 'PCMover' software, which did exactly what i needed to do (althought it took 5 hours to move all my software). The new computer is up and running and has exactly the same look and functionality as the old one, only faster.
Thanks again for the help.
If you had the room on an external drive for 3 backups...
You could have made a backup of old PC for safekeeping.
Run SYSPREP /generalize to strip the HAL.
Make a new backup of old Sysprepped PC for restoring to the new PC.
Make a backup of new PC for safekeeping.
Restore Sysprepped image from old PC to new.
Hopefully on first boot, Plug and Play would find all needed drivers, etc.
I didn't suggest sysprep because I don't think it would work on anything prior to Ghost 15.
I think you need to be able to do a "cold image" after using sysprep because once it runs it makes all the changes and then shuts down the system. I don't think you have a chance to stop the shutdown for a hot image because some of the changes are made right between the loggoff and system shutdown.
Dave
edit- I think either plug and play was turned off in the BIOS, or the USB (chipset) drivers needed to be updated.
You might be right about it shutting down before an image could be captured. I was thinking all of the Sysprep stuff was setup for the next boot and the magic happened at boot time. If he has Ghost 10, he should also have Ghost 2003, which should have worked to make a cold image like you said. It's too bad you can't Sysprep an OS that is offline, or can you?
I take that back, your right about being able to make a cold image.
I saw a post here a few days ago where someone using Ghost 10 was using the "legacy" version of Ghost on the recovery disk to image systems. It was the Ghost32 executable I think from Ghost 8.2. I felt gipped because I have Ghost 9 and it only allows restoring .gho files, doesn't let you make them.
As for offline syspreps, there is an interesting project I was following that they were working on a offline sysprep that could be used with a bartPE. I don't recall whatever became of it.
There is however, a consumer image product that will let you do offline syspreps on ANY system. You don't even need to use in in conjuction with there images. You can boot any system with the recovery disk and browse to the windows folder and then you get sysprep options that you can apply to that system.
generate new sid, change computer name, machine independant restore (mini-setup), change hal, exchange hal, and "apply currently loaded drivers".
That last one is interesting, if the recovery disk has the correct drivers loaded to access the drive you can add that driver to the offline system.
It would be in bad taste for me to mention the company but it's not the one that starts with an A and they make a real nice defrag program although I like perfect disk a little better.
It also has firefox included in the recovery disk and when you start it up the homepage is set to the company's website, I thought that was a pretty cool feature. If your in trouble you could ask for help.
Dave
Some of those features would be nice on Symantec's Recovery Disc, especially internet access. When your down, it is nice to be able to get online help without a second PC. Not everyone has access to a second PC.