can i install windows to another macgine using ghost?

A qualified yes. There are two techniques that often are successful:

Non-ACPI - Standard PC manuevering. There is a recent post of mine laying it out.

AND, there is an article called something like "Moving your Hard Drive to a New Machine" that has met with some success. This one involves running the second Repair option with the XP install cd, which occurs after you hit Enter rather than "R" at the first option screen.

I feel there is a better chance of success with the first one. Go over to Hardware - Hard Drives to search for them.

the second way is you just clone (copy) your hd to the new hd.

then put the new hd in the new pc.

boot off the xp cd.

in the xp cd menu when prompted the first time press "enter" (for install and not repair) then the second time prompted press "R" (for repair).

let the repair do its thing and when its done the new hd (which is a copy of the old hd) in the new pc should boot up fine and have all your stuff from the old hd on it

Your license keycode is oem; married only to the original hardware.

If you try to "whack" onto new hardware, you won't be able to activate.

Even if you borrowed someone's XP cd to work the overwrite of the cloned hd (as described by edklite), your key would be accepted for the install, but not for re-activation.

You can't win with pre-installed oem XP's going over to new stuff - won't be allowed. That's why they're so cheap - one shot.

You will be so much happier owning your very own XP full version. You can easily do clean installs any time to countless comps; AS LONG AS YOU'RE USING ONLY ONE MACHINE AT A TIME! Microsoft will always activate you. Just tell them your equipment failed and you have purchased new. I've got one client who's activated by phone six times over the last 2 1/2 years on four new units; and another guy has activated 25 times on the same rig (don't ask. He's an idiot).

I have a feeling that MS will drop support for "Home" in a couple of years, so I feel you'll be better served by purchasing Pro. I so it once for $75, but it's usually around $110. Do not do ebay - too chancy. There have been ripoffs reported. There are 7,8,9 decent software sellers out there. Shop around!

On the first idea, see if you can pull it off. BUT, it is technically possible that the O/S will shut down after 30 days if not activated.

On the second idea, my experience has been - yes. As long as you've activated that XP on one unit at a time, and you're not trying to activate every two or three months.

The codekey is tied into a mildly complicated hardware hash. The hash is generated by the presence of the following stuff: all have one "vote" except the nic, which has three.

video card
scsi adapter
ide controller (lately, SATA controllers) (ergo, the mobo)
nic (network interface card)
ram
cpu type
cpu serial #
hd
hd volume serial #
cd or dvd drive
docking capability

Putting it simply, most of the time, if you change four or more components, you have to reactivate. But, MS really is quite liberal about multiple activations with a legit full-version key owner.

+1

Here's the non-ACPI routine.

After you've cloned onto the new hd, install it in the old rig as the primary boot device. Then:

Find out if the new mobo supports non-ACPI operation.

If so, print this out - and good luck!

OLD SYSTEM
Remove and uninstall all the current drivers (video, sound, chipset, ide) from Control Panel - Add/Remove.

Find Device Manager (Start - Run - (type in)devmgmt.msc - Enter). Expand the Computer value - double-click ACPI Uniprocessor PC - driver tab - Update driver.
Choose to "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) - Don't Search. UNCHECK THE BOX "Show compatible hardware". Select "Standard PC". Click Next & OK. You will get a Restart prompt. NO! "DO NOT RESTART".
While still in D/M, delete the rest of the hardware, whose drivers you didn't find in C/P relating to the above list only.
Shut down and do not turn it on until you've completed ALL the hardware swapping in the old rig; or install the drive in a new machine.

NEW SYSTEM
Turn on and bootup. XP will load & redetect the entire hardware config. Probably will reboot a couple of times.

After you get a quiet desktop, Start - Run - (type in)cmd.exe - Enter

Type this in: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

Type: devmgmt.msc

View tab - Show hidden devices. The old stuff will have transparent icons.
Select, right-click and Uninstall all of these EXCEPT the ones inside "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" and "Sound, video and game controllers". Reboot.

Back into D/M - expand the Computer value. Double-click the first Standard PC - driver tab - Update driver. Choose "Install from a list...." - "Don't search....". Uncheck "Show compatible hardware - Select "Advanced....(ACPI) PC". Next - OK - Restart.

XP will now detect again. When done, reboot. Back into D/M - expand Computer - right-click Standard PC - uninstall. Reboot.

Back into D/M and get rid of the transparent icons again, as per three paragraphs above. Reboot.

Check the new mobo cd documentation. You may want to install all the NEW drivers again if that is part of their instruction for XP operating system.

I know it's a lot of steps, but I feel it's much quicker than a clean install with all its' updating & setting stuff up. With one of my customers, it took 8 hours to get him back to where he was.