swhowie wrote:My question: is there a way to restore the environment without having to also restore hardware drivers that will corrupt the whole new VHD? Can Ghost handle this and how?
Kind of but not really.
The only way your going to have no drivers is if you restore an image without any drivers, however if you can boot and get the important hardware redetected and replaced so your able to get to the desktop then removing or updating the rest shouldn't be an issue.
I been using Virtual PC for many years and I never thought it could support a 64bit guest, but if it does here is how to try to do it. I say try because I don't know how well it works in all situations and hardware, I did it tonight but it wasn't a major switch.
In Ghost 15, under "tasks" select "One time Virtual Conversion". (I used a copy of a v2i image, I don't remember or even checked if the image was still there or damaged when I finished)
Select .vhd as the output type and one the next screen choose the image to convert. On the last screen there is a box that says something like "run mini setup" or rerun setup, make sure that box is checked, that will sysprep the image and attempt to change the hal.
When your done with the conversion, in virtual pc start by creating a new VM but then choose the new .vhd file as an existing virtual drive.
When you boot the VM it will go through a mini-setup and redetect hardware and network settings. It's going to be running real slow. If you make it all the way to the logon it will tell you that you need to reactivate but it will give you a 3 day grace period. Choose not to activate at this time.
Your VM is going to be running real slow and windows is going to bug the heck out of you to activate but make sure you get all the hardware squared away before doing so or it may become unactivated again.
Once you install the VM additions it will start running much better, pay special attention to the network adapters, for some reason they count as an important part of if the system needs reactivation. (Get them right so you don't have to do it again, you got 3 days).
You may also find left over hardware that needs to be removed or hardware misidentified that needs to be redetected. You also might find running programs that were needed on the laptop that needs to be uninstalled, touch pad stuff, sound card tools, etc.
If you get that far and everything cleaned up it should be running very well.
I also noticed that the conversion made the .vhd a lot bigger than it needed to be, when your all done and activated you might want to defrag and optimize the file.
Best of luck,
Dave