Hi. I need some guidance on copying a windows xp drive,copying the hole drive including the operating system to another hard drive(the original drive is on its last legs). (1) does drive image software work ? as i thought for copyright reasons it was not possible to copy all of windows. (2) If it works does the receiving drive have to be the same size as the original drive. (3) what would happen if i put this new drive into another computer with a different processor and video card,will windows throw a wobbly? The reason for all these questions is i have the chance of a cheap second hand desktop computer with a hard drive that is getting very noisy, so i want to fit a new drive.I do not have the xp disks so i need to if possible copy windows onto the new drive.Then install ubuntu on the same drive as a dual boot(if i am right ubuntu will partition the drive as i require and do the dual boot settings.My own computer has a better version of xp (professional)on it but the processor and video card are different.Would like to put that on the new if possible. I really want to change fully to ubuntu but not sure if it will be happy with a games type video card which the previous owner had put in the computer. OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk? Barry
2008/9/18 Barrys linux mail <bazubuntumail@tiscali.co.uk>:
Hi. I need some guidance on copying a windows xp drive,copying the hole drive including the operating system to another hard drive(the original drive is on its last legs). (1) does drive image software work ? as i thought for copyright reasons it was not possible to copy all of windows.
Yes, it works. If you just changing the hard drive to one of a similar type you should be fine.
(2) If it works does the receiving drive have to be the same size as the original drive.
It works best if the new drive is the same size, or bigger. If the new drive is smaller then the copy software needs to be more clever about fitting the data in. This applies to all OSes.
(3) what would happen if i put this new drive into another computer with a different processor and video card,will windows throw a wobbly?
The first wobbly will be sorting out motherboard, processor, disk and video drivers. If you are changing from IDE to SATA then expect trouble. My HP laptop showed signs of being a cloned XP image from a similar model with a slightly different processor. Small differences will be fine. It is normal for system manufacturers (and IT departments) to use a cloned disk to speed up the install, leaving just the Windows licence and user setup to the end user. The next wobbly will be XP's product activation scheme (the copy protection). Changing the hardware of an existing install costs points, and after a threshold you have to re-activate. This can be as simple as having an Internet connection (I've done that), or as complicated as phoning them (I've not done that). Does the computer come with it's own XP licence sticker?
OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk?
Yes :-) I put up with dual booting for years before dedicating one computer to each OS I wanted to run. That does take up desk space though. Good luck, Tim.
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:07:41PM +0100, Tim Green wrote:
2008/9/18 Barrys linux mail <bazubuntumail@tiscali.co.uk>:
OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk?
Yes :-) I put up with dual booting for years before dedicating one computer to each OS I wanted to run. That does take up desk space though.
I did that for a while using an X server on the Windows box so I could see my Linux desktop on my Windows machine, saves space at least. However I now run my Windows machine in Vmware on Linux, saves space, saves hardware, has big advantages in being able to copy things (both files and Cut/Paste) between the two systems. Starting from scratch now I think I'd choose VirtualBox instead of Vmware. -- Chris Green
I put up with dual booting for years before dedicating one computer to each OS I wanted to run. That does take up desk space though.
My standard response to 'wouldn't it be cool to dual-boot?' is 'No.' Any time I actually did it I ended up on one operating system, including: 1) small Windows 98 partition to run one game -- it ended up being wasted space because I could never be arsed to reboot. 2) dual-boot Windows & Linux... ended up spending all my time in Linux, going over to Linux, then I had a severe attack of post-flu depression and crawled back to Windows because Linux was too scary. This was years ago, so I had no help with Linux like a local user group. It effectively meant I was my own sysadmin, and I wasn't up to it when feeling less-than-optimal. Am now a happy Mac user because it has The Friendly when I feel Nervous and The Unix for when I feel Intrepid :-) I still think dual-boot requires a lot of discipline, and I tend to only reboot once a week or less... Regards, R
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:58:11AM +0100, Ruth Bygrave wrote:
I put up with dual booting for years before dedicating one computer to each OS I wanted to run. That does take up desk space though.
My standard response to 'wouldn't it be cool to dual-boot?' is 'No.' Any time I actually did it I ended up on one operating system, including:
I can think of a few situations that dual boot is very useful, but then they are all the applications that I use it for. I dual boot a couple of machines, but then I only tend to use the "other OS" for things like firmware flashing tools for mobile phones and car ecus. I really wouldn't dare trust a virtualisation solution to get things right in that situation, theoretically it should be ok but when you've got a few hundred pounds worth of electronics that are expensive to replace a quick reboot seems like a much more sensible idea. It is also handy having a dual boot machine for checking websites in the "real" IE rather than just trusting one running in wine, but that's mainly because I don't have or want the microsoft fonts installed. Oh, and another use is having a dual boot setup to test new hardware to see if it really is broken or just not quite supported, perhaps a ramped version of the hardware etc. Also I solved the gaming problem by buying an xbox ;) Adam -- jabberid = quinophex@jabber.earth.li
On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 21:25 +0100, Barrys linux mail wrote:
(1) does drive image software work ? as i thought for copyright reasons it was not possible to copy all of windows. Yes commercial software such as ghost has been doing it forever, G4L as a Free option works very well.
(2) If it works does the receiving drive have to be the same size as the original drive. G4L will handle it in a upward direction and simple partitioning schemes. Otherwise you might have to resort to parted or something
(3) what would happen if i put this new drive into another computer with a different processor and video card,will windows throw a wobbly?
This depends, across some chipsets will cause a BSOD, across different drive interfaces (i.e. SATA, IDE, SCSI) it can be a royal pain. If the partitioning is changing in terms of which partition is the windows partition then pretty much forget it. Usually there are fixes, failing that you get a windows installation disk to the same SP level and do a repair installation. Also unless the Windows installation you are imaging from is a volume licence edition then you will probably kick off the activation system again. This (depending on when you originally activated and it's general mood, may or may not ask you to call Microsoft and explain yourself before it will let you activate)
OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk?
Yes ! I would say, nobody needs two computers running Windows :) Oh and I doubt I need to mention this but make sure that if you are doing disk to disk imaging you get the source and target drives round the right way ! It sounds simple enough but I have seen it happen enough times now.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 21:25 +0100, Barrys linux mail wrote:
(1) does drive image software work ? as i thought for copyright reasons it was not possible to copy all of windows. Yes commercial software such as ghost has been doing it forever, G4L as a Free option works very well.
I've had success with Drive Image, and Acronis True Image (the bootable version is actually Linux based, but made to look like XP)
(2) If it works does the receiving drive have to be the same size as the original drive. G4L will handle it in a upward direction and simple partitioning schemes. Otherwise you might have to resort to parted or something
As above, if restorring to a larger disk, it'll just work.
(3) what would happen if i put this new drive into another computer with a different processor and video card,will windows throw a wobbly?
This depends, across some chipsets will cause a BSOD, across different drive interfaces (i.e. SATA, IDE, SCSI) it can be a royal pain. If the partitioning is changing in terms of which partition is the windows partition then pretty much forget it.
Usually there are fixes, failing that you get a windows installation disk to the same SP level and do a repair installation.
Also unless the Windows installation you are imaging from is a volume licence edition then you will probably kick off the activation system again. This (depending on when you originally activated and it's general mood, may or may not ask you to call Microsoft and explain yourself before it will let you activate)
On the machine you are cloning, run sysprep (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577) This will let you prepare an image for deployment. On the target machine, just put in the serial number and away you go.
OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk?
Yes ! I would say, nobody needs two computers running Windows :)
Oh and I doubt I need to mention this but make sure that if you are doing disk to disk imaging you get the source and target drives round the right way ! It sounds simple enough but I have seen it happen enough times now.
This si a lot easier if the drives are the same size. Had paranoid moments restoring onto an 80GB IDE when the system drive in the PC was also 80GB. HTH Chris
On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 00:12 +0100, Chris Glover wrote:
I've had success with Drive Image, and Acronis True Image (the bootable version is actually Linux based, but made to look like XP)
Yus both viable products, I was however trying to steer towards (F)ree products as this is ALUG. Also really unless you need the (actually quite excellent) multicast facility Ghost offers to do multiple identical machines at the same time then there is no benefit to using the non-free products that I can see. Even though we have a ghost licence I find myself using G4L more for single machine images because it is easier to get booted on modern storage controllers.
On the machine you are cloning, run sysprep (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577) This will let you prepare an image for deployment. On the target machine, just put in the serial number and away you go.
I was making the assumption that Barry only has one professional licence key and therefore doesn't have a different key to insert. Therefore apart from prompting on first boot for a different machine name etc and generating a new machine identifier (which is only relevant on domains) there is no real benefit to running sysprep in this instance. Also he will have to either restore the image and sysprep the restored image (thus adding another step) or sysprep his working machine before he images it and put that through the first run wizard as well. Also sysprep won't stop you having to go through activation, in fact it will most likely mandate it if being run from a OEM installation image rather than a volume one.
I recently had to replace a hard disk in a friends laptop, running windows. He didn't have the original install disks, so I used a live Linux boot disk & and external USB drive: Boot the live disk mount the external USB drive to /mnt dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sda.img umount the USB drive shutdown the machine & replace the hard disk reboot the live disk mount the USB drive dd if=/mnt/sda.img of=/dev/sda umount & reboot into windows. This worked really well, but the two hard disks were of identical size. Window subsequently reported new hardware found (the hard disk), install its 'driver' and was fine. Stuart On Friday 19 September 2008 01:55:46 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 00:12 +0100, Chris Glover wrote:
I've had success with Drive Image, and Acronis True Image (the bootable version is actually Linux based, but made to look like XP)
Yus both viable products, I was however trying to steer towards (F)ree products as this is ALUG. Also really unless you need the (actually quite excellent) multicast facility Ghost offers to do multiple identical machines at the same time then there is no benefit to using the non-free products that I can see. Even though we have a ghost licence I find myself using G4L more for single machine images because it is easier to get booted on modern storage controllers.
On the machine you are cloning, run sysprep (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577) This will let you prepare an image for deployment. On the target machine, just put in the serial number and away you go.
I was making the assumption that Barry only has one professional licence key and therefore doesn't have a different key to insert. Therefore apart from prompting on first boot for a different machine name etc and generating a new machine identifier (which is only relevant on domains) there is no real benefit to running sysprep in this instance. Also he will have to either restore the image and sysprep the restored image (thus adding another step) or sysprep his working machine before he images it and put that through the first run wizard as well. Also sysprep won't stop you having to go through activation, in fact it will most likely mandate it if being run from a OEM installation image rather than a volume one.
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participants (8)
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Adam Bower -
Barrys linux mail -
Chris G -
Chris Glover -
Ruth Bygrave -
Stuart Bailey -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood