Reply to: Catastrophic PC failure

[dinker]

I`ve done this before, it will work no matter what the hardware is. I used the Arstechnica guide:

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news...ng-windows.ars

[darmstadt]

I've created Ghost images of laptops and successfully restored them to VMWare systems with just a lot of having to install new drivers with no problems.

[Jaws]

I've transferred a hard disk to another pc before successfully. There is a command in windows which will strip out the drivers so on the next boot the new drivers are installed (or you are prompted for disks). The command is "sysprep" and I can't remember how to use it.

Doing a repair install (booting the winxp cd + repairing the existing installation) might also be a good option (although this I have not tried).

[chicane]

Get a Mac

[scooterscot]

Get a Mac

[JoJoGabor]

Its not drivers that will stop it booting but the HAL.dll (Hardware abstraction Layer) The HAL.dll is compiled when the OS is installed, so assuming you have the same OS on the new laptop, find the HAL.dll and copy it to a floppy or hard drive, USB etc. Image your new laptop, then using a boot CD such as BartPE or Winpe boot from CD, and copy over the HAL.dll you copied earlier over the hal.dll of your newly imaged laptop. That should ensure it boots and you can then mess about with any necessary drivers (hint: do the network first to get internet access to download the drivers)

If your new OS is different to your Ghost image, you could install the old OS (eg XP) onto the new laptop as a dual boot and get the newly created hal.dll this way.

[Durbs]

It would probably boot. Windows is pretty good at detecting the changes and adjusting the drivers accordingly. Of course it aint 100% guaranteed.

Best way is to run a clean install and then mount the Ghost image just like a normal backup and copy only what you need over. Then you wont have your shiny new PC filled with a huge load of old redundant driver crud from the old installation.

[ba55meister]

out of curiosity i would try to boot the new machine up with the old image, if that won't work use ghost explorer to grad any data you might need.
Ideally create a new ghost image for your new pc

[NotAllThere]

I did once do a direct swap of a laptop harddrive into a different model of the same make (not radically different - they were probably same year of manufacture), and that worked a treat - didn't even need safe mode!

What would happen, in future, if I just ran everything under VM? Could I then just build another PC, make a new VM of the same config, and restore...

Anyway, I'll see what happens when I do a restore. It's not a very important PC, but it'd be nice to have it running - especially on a new machine - the motherboard and chip are 4 years old; other components are approaching 8...

Thanks a lot!

[NickFitz]

I stand corrected - I always imagined booting in safe mode would be similar to booting with no hardware drivers installed. A bit like the way Windows is on first boot following installation - 800x600 VGA, no network etc.

To be precise, it boots with a minimal set of drivers, and is intended for the purpose of adding or removing drivers. AFAIK, it uses the Windows default drivers, so even if the hardware is radically different, it should still boot as it's not relying on any of the hardware-specific drivers from the old machine.

Back in the days of Win95, I've swapped out a motherboard for a new one which didn't even have the same family of processor (from Intel Pentium to an AMD K-something) and was able to boot from the existing Windows installation into Safe Mode and get everything as stable as one could expect with Win95. I would assume the same is possible with XP.

[TheBigD]

I think if the hardware is somewhat similar, you can get away with it. I'm not really a windows bod, but I've tried to recover a failed desktop before in this way and it didn't work for me.

[chicane]

If the new hardware wa completly different, then I don't think the machine would boot, eveni n safe mode.

I stand corrected - I always imagined booting in safe mode would be similar to booting with no hardware drivers installed. A bit like the way Windows is on first boot following installation - 800x600 VGA, no network etc.

[TheBigD]

I reckon this would work - you could go into device manager in safe mode and delete/disable all the devices that didn't apply to the new machine. A reboot in "normal" mode should then bring the machine up in a usable state.

The downfall would be all the Windows cruft transferred from your existing computer to the new one. In all honesty you might want to start from scratch with the new machine and restore your data only. A fresh install of XP is a breath of fresh air when you're accustomed to being bogged down by one with a couple of years of cruft on it.

If the new hardware wa completly different, then I don't think the machine would boot, eveni n safe mode.

[chicane]

I've never attempted it, but in theory I think you could restore from the Ghost image, then boot into Safe Mode and get all the necessary drivers into place.

If it doesn't work, well, at least you tried

I reckon this would work - you could go into device manager in safe mode and delete/disable all the devices that didn't apply to the new machine. A reboot in "normal" mode should then bring the machine up in a usable state.

The downfall would be all the Windows cruft transferred from your existing computer to the new one. In all honesty you might want to start from scratch with the new machine and restore your data only. A fresh install of XP is a breath of fresh air when you're accustomed to being bogged down by one with a couple of years of cruft on it.

[NickFitz]

I've never attempted it, but in theory I think you could restore from the Ghost image, then boot into Safe Mode and get all the necessary drivers into place.

If it doesn't work, well, at least you tried