How do I image one PC to another with dissimilar hardware?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

Skyliinez

Honorable
Dec 2, 2013
31
0
10,530
What is the best way to image one PC and load the image to another with different hardware? I've tried loading a clonezilla image from one to another with just a different motherboard before and Windows fails to boot.

Do I need to uninstall all drivers and image it? Whats the best tool to use? I want to do this with little configuration as possible.

Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
B
The problem is not cloning software the problem is the design of windows.

When you install windows you install it for your computer's specific hardware environment.
If you change motherboard or other key hardware to something near the same generation or family then you can usually get away with just loading the new drivers in safe mode.
If you completely change hardware generations or even worse AMD<>intel then you are going to have massive instability if even boot at all.

Since you are at the windows fails to boot point then there is nothing you can do but a clean install.

Also FYI it is agianst microsoft licensing to run 2 copies of the same windows license at any given time, if windows 8 or earlier it is agianst license to...
Sort by date Sort by votes
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,771
18,133
184,590


Generally, you don't.
New hardware often dictates a clean install. Sometimes this is required.

A couple of the newer imaging/cloning tools claim to be able to do this, but I've not seen any independent reports of success.
Acronis and Macrium Reflect, specifically.

And if it does work, then you have the licensing/activation issues.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

boosted1g

Titan
Jun 12, 2013
14,846
8
74,965
The problem is not cloning software the problem is the design of windows.

When you install windows you install it for your computer's specific hardware environment.
If you change motherboard or other key hardware to something near the same generation or family then you can usually get away with just loading the new drivers in safe mode.
If you completely change hardware generations or even worse AMD<>intel then you are going to have massive instability if even boot at all.

Since you are at the windows fails to boot point then there is nothing you can do but a clean install.

Also FYI it is agianst microsoft licensing to run 2 copies of the same windows license at any given time, if windows 8 or earlier it is agianst license to transfer any OEM/System Builder to another PC, if this is windows 10 the only valid way to transfer is to link your license with a micorosft (hotmail, live, outlook, etc) account and use that as your PCs login.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom