Clone a hard drive to different hardware

[ericpol911]

I have a client that has an older workstation. It has an athlon x2 2gb ram 250 gb hard drive with windows 7. I want to clone that drive to new hardware FX 4100 4gb ram 500 gb hard drive. I see Macrium, Paragon and Acronis all offer this feature. I'm looking to see what some of you use for this. Thanks for the help.

 

[pc-quebec]

Since I deal only with WD , I use the free WD/Acronis. For clone a SSD to a larger one I use the Intel tool as I use only Intel SSD and will upgrade customer SSD only to an Intel one.

 

[16k_zx81]

sysprep and paragon

..............

 

[mikeroq]

When I replace hard drives most of the time I can get away with cloning it, I use paragon to clone it then run the P2P Adjust OS wizard.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I use the free version of Acronis that comes from both Seagate or Western Digital....whichever brand I'm cloning to (usually WD Blacks or RE4).

However...when going to all new hardware, I don't care what products claim about "new hardware" or combining with sysprep....you end up with an operating system stuffed with dirty drivers. You'll end up with a system that will not run as good as a fresh clean install. Yes Win7 is more tolerant of this than XP, and XP was more tolerant of it than 9X....but bottom line is, you still end up with a less than optimal system. So why settle for less than optimal!

The greater the differences in motherboard chipsets are between the systems ..the worse off the poor users of that computer will be.

One lockup or system hang per week...or one lockup or hang per month...what's your tolerance level for less than perfect? Mine ain't there....fresh install for me or my clients, period.

 

[16k_zx81]

However...when going to all new hardware, I don't care what products claim about "new hardware" or combining with sysprep....you end up with an operating system stuffed with dirty drivers. You'll end up with a system that will not run as good as a fresh clean install. Yes Win7 is more tolerant of this than XP, and XP was more tolerant of it than 9X....but bottom line is, you still end up with a less than optimal system. So why settle for less than optimal!

.

every. single. os install that I do is paragon and sysprep and I have never had a problem. Frankly, Im a bit mystified by this statement, as based on my own experience, it works absolutely fine.

 

[JustInspired]

every. single. os install that I do is paragon and sysprep and I have never had a problem. Frankly, Im a bit mystified by this statement, as based on my own experience, it works absolutely fine.

Would be interested in finding out your procedure for doing this. I already own Paragon.
Thanks. Julian.

 

[cyabro]

We always push for a fresh install with the customer but that is not always an option.

We use our SHadowProtect IT Edition and the HIR option (Hardware Independent Restore) and it works great.
Win7 is pretty good itself though and after cloning the drive over to the new hardware we always test first and see if it will boot.
If not then we use HIR option and put in the required drivers.
Once it is running we uninstall any drivers for the old hardware and install the new ones.
Haven't seen any issues with performance doing it this way, compared to a fresh install.
We also show all hidden non-present devices in Device Manager and remove old hardware that isn't required any more.

 

[mikeroq]

every. single. os install that I do is paragon and sysprep and I have never had a problem. Frankly, Im a bit mystified by this statement, as based on my own experience, it works absolutely fine.

Same here. Personally I've been moving my hard drive around on my home computer for years without issue, with XP before any one even talked about cloning software with adaptive restore, or universal restore, or whatever you want to call it. With 7 it is much smoother.

Most of these people have all kinds of crazy programs that are ancient and have no install media anymore, or they don't develop the software anymore, or are just won't get with the times, or can't afford new $1k software. Like this company I know they run one of their CNC machines of an ancient windows 98 laptop!

 

[alluseridsrejected]

+1 for shadow protect HIR.

I don't disagree with Stonecat because it just makes sense that a new computer should ideally start off with a nice new clean install free of whatever problems are built up in windows, but sometimes customers just want it.

They can be up and running much faster with less time and effort. Programs do not have to be reinstalled, all configurations and settings are automatically there. Just update the drivers and windows license and you are normally good to go. But I do always wonder what problems and garbage am I moving over too. Last one I did, I moved a problem with GFI MAV that would not have been there with a clean install, but I managed to work thru it.

That last one, the customer insisted I clone the install to a new pc because she would have to pay thousands for new software. I told her she needed to get off xp because MS drops support for it next year. She still did not care so I did it for her. I was already running ShadowProtect for her business.

 

[brandonkick]

Unless there are softwares that cannot be reinstalled or something along those lines, a fresh full format and reinstall is the way to go when changing hardware for me.

 

[DocGreen]

That last one, the customer insisted I clone the install to a new pc because she would have to pay thousands for new software. I told her she needed to get off xp because MS drops support for it next year. She still did not care so I did it for her. I was already running ShadowProtect for her business.

Was she wanting a 2nd PC with the software on it, or was she replacing the PC with a new one? If replacing, she should have been able to re-install the software without re-purchasing it. Really... the more I think about it... you shouldn't have had to do this at all. If the problem is her license wouldn't allow installation on more than one PC, either way you do it you're still violating that license. If her problem is she didn't have the installation media, she should have been able to request or download it from the software company.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

every. single. os install that I do is paragon and sysprep and I have never had a problem. Frankly, Im a bit mystified by this statement, as based on my own experience, it works absolutely fine.

can you say with absolute certainty that it never...ever..hangs on shutting down once? Or...if you remote in...the screen is black...because there are a couple of leftover video card drivers from before? Or HDD performance might be stuck on non AHCI mode from the old motherboard leaving a setting in the registry which keeps it in first gear (slow) on the new motherboard that "could" run faster?

Or the sound gives a little chop due to leftover drivers?

NIC gives a red X in systray once in a while even though it's connected

Has a hard time coming out of standby mode...so end user has to hard reboot it by holding down the power button.

Mind or don't mind Event Viewer being filled with red entries?

If you were to build yourself (or upgrade) your gaming rig...and you played some system intensive first person shooter games....would you clone migrate your old system (from older hardware) to the new platform? Or would you pave a fresh install for yourself because you wanted to have the best running system possible? If the latter is true...why would you lower your standards for your clients?

How many people are closing their eyes when it's an OEM Windows license or Office license installed on the system? Those live and die with the hardware they came with, non transferable.

 

[PCS]

I use Acronis for all my imaging but find the universal restore feature a bit hit and miss so I do the following.

1. Run sysprep if the original machine will still be in use

2. Image with Acronis, either restore image to new hdd or do a hdd clone.

3. Boot ultimate boot CD and run fixIDE (i think thats what it's called, it's in the registry section) reboot and install missing drivers from driverpacks.ru.

In my day job I create XP and 7 VM's with various snapshots to be able to go back and forth. once a month I do a windows, java, flash, AV and MWB update, make a new image and then install when needed.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

Was she wanting a 2nd PC with the software on it, or was she replacing the PC with a new one? If replacing, she should have been able to re-install the software without re-purchasing it. Really... the more I think about it... you shouldn't have had to do this at all. If the problem is her license wouldn't allow installation on more than one PC, either way you do it you're still violating that license. If her problem is she didn't have the installation media, she should have been able to request or download it from the software company.

No licenses were violated. And her motherboard bit the dust on the old system. I still have it sitting here in my office, dead. And she had a full xp pro license, not oem. She said her application software license specifically has to have a new version that would cost her for the windows 7 version. Yes I am sure I could have done a clean XP install and reinstalled all her software and printers and network settings and so on & so on and worked thru all that for 3+ days she didn't have. Instead I did a HIR restore and had her up and running in a matter of hours.

Really, you need to look into this as you obviously do not understand ShadowProtect or what is involved when a business computer crashes and the effort and time that can be required. HIR and virtual boot technologies are some of the main selling points for ShadowProtect and there are many many business relying on it to keep them running.

 

[brandonkick]

I'm sure just about everyone here understands what it means in terms of time and money lost for a business PC to be down, but your spending a little more time now to save A LOT of time and headaches later.

It shouldn't take 3 days to do a setup. I just installed XP PRO SP3 on a dell dimension 4600 (P4 2.8 GHZ, 512 MB RAM) that took me about 4 hours to fully configure and that is mainly because the windows updates took 2-3 full hours to install (took seconds to download, I have a 90 Mbps + broadband connection).

You might have a good part of one day into setting it up now, vs two hours the other way but think of it this way. Do a fresh install on new hardware, set everything up, restore her data and then image the system. Now the next time the system crashes you can load the image onto a new fresh drive and it will be like it came out of the box for her.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

I'm sure just about everyone here understands what it means in terms of time and money lost for a business PC to be down, but your spending a little more time now to save A LOT of time and headaches later.

It shouldn't take 3 days to do a setup. I just installed XP PRO SP3 on a dell dimension 4600 (P4 2.8 GHZ, 512 MB RAM) that took me about 4 hours to fully configure and that is mainly because the windows updates took 2-3 full hours to install (took seconds to download, I have a 90 Mbps + broadband connection).

You might have a good part of one day into setting it up now, vs two hours the other way but think of it this way. Do a fresh install on new hardware, set everything up, restore her data and then image the system. Now the next time the system crashes you can load the image onto a new fresh drive and it will be like it came out of the box for her.

Maybe not every install takes days, but you can not guarantee a business it won't in their given situation.

First not everyone has a 90 Mbps connection. & what data did you have to restore for the customer? and what network shares had to be setup? and how many network printers did you install? network scanners? local usb printers? and what 3rd party products did they need? Office? Remote support software? Accounting software? Databases? Email? Java? PDF? Flash? and what backup system did you implement in that 4 hours so the new computer could be continuously backed up onsite every 15 minutes? What about offsite backup going forward? What user accounts & permissions, were all those correct?

I am not knocking a fresh install or it's valid reasons. But I can not promise my customers I can have them up and running and all of this working without issues in a business critical environment where if computer illiterate employee has even the smallest issue they are at a standstill. This was not a planned out new PC install. It was a on the spot disaster recovery situation.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

then image the system. Now the next time the system crashes you can load the image onto a new fresh drive and it will be like it came out of the box for her.

And I should have added, You think in months from now she would want it like it came out of the box? This particular computer I am taking a shadowprotect image once every hour.

 

[DocGreen]

No licenses were violated. And her motherboard bit the dust on the old system. I still have it sitting here in my office, dead. And she had a full xp pro license, not oem. She said her application software license specifically has to have a new version that would cost her for the windows 7 version. Yes I am sure I could have done a clean XP install and reinstalled all her software and printers and network settings and so on & so on and worked thru all that for 3+ days she didn't have. Instead I did a HIR restore and had her up and running in a matter of hours.

Really, you need to look into this as you obviously do not understand ShadowProtect or what is involved when a business computer crashes and the effort and time that can be required. HIR and virtual boot technologies are some of the main selling points for ShadowProtect and there are many many business relying on it to keep them running.

I've recovered plenty of business PC's from crashes and never had it take more than a few hours, even with P.I.T.A. LOB softwares, network shares, databases, etc,etc. The only time it's ever taken "days" to recover from a crash was when it was a complex server and the client had no usable backups of their databases. THEN it took days, but because of data recovery. I understand what it means for a business' computer systems to be down, and what it means for businesses to lose data... that is why I always ensure my clients have proper on-site and off-site backup procedures in place.

Just because you swear by ShadowProtect doesn't make it the end-all be-all for disaster recovery.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

Just because you swear by ShadowProtect doesn't make it the end-all be-all for disaster recovery.

What? Where did I even insinuate such a thing? Yes it is A decent but FAR from perfect solution and the one I use. But that is just over the top.