Ghosting xp on an old ide drive and putting it on a new sata drive

From your post, I see you are wanting to image to different hardware. There are imaging software that can clone/image onto different hardware and the ones I have used are Acronis TrueImage and ShadowProtect (which are commerical, purchased products).

To be honest, in my opinion, I would do a complete fresh install on your new machine. The reasons are:

1. While ghosting/imaging software is good, you still need to get drivers and additional software installed, esp for Windows XP with the new hardware. You will need to uninstall the software that was installed on old eMachines as that will not be relevant to your new computer.

2. Licensing and activation issues too. Because you're essentially installing Windows XP on another machine with different hardware, if your Win XP was OEM or Retail, you may need to reactivate it. Also you will need to make sure you have a licensed copy on the new machine too.


If you're going to have Windows 7, I think it's better you just use Win 7. Windows 7 comes with XP Mode which means you are legally allowed to run a Virtual Machine of Windows XP anyway. So if there are software that only works in Win XP, then you can install it onto the Win XP virtual machine install as part of Windows 7 using the XP Mode feature.

Hope that helps.

in regards to part 2, I planned on using the sticky on this forum (about repair/reinstall) windows for the new computer. (i still have my product keys and original xp disc)

If I did a fresh install, of xp, would I be able to get all of my programs and data onto the new install. (i have my current desktop xp backed up onto an external hard drive.)

also if I did the xp mode with the virtual machine windows 7 has, would I be able to have the programs and settings from my desktop xp with the backup of it on my external hard drive?

If i used this macrium reflect free (here's the link):http://download.cnet.com/Macrium-Reflect-Free/3000-2242...

would i be able to properly ghost image my xp and put it on an external hard drive?

(if i didn't want to do a fresh install?)

update: I am going to (test/experiment) first by doing a disk image using macrium of my current windows xp on my laptop (instead of where i actually want to do it with my desktop)

after I do it i'll save the image to a laptop hard drive that i have in a docking station

then i plan on using a friend's of mine laptop and see if i can restore it on there (i'm rather sure i'll need my windows xp disc from home, but i'll see what I can do)

my question now (other than my other questions which i'd still like to be answered) is whether or not i would work with an unallocated partition, or would it need to be formatted to ntfs first then try to restore it (or put xp on it on the ntfs system THEN try to restore it)

I don't mind going out of my way, even for the experiment.

Clone will only work on the same pc it was made from, xp will not boot in a new machine with different mobo and etc.

hmmm saga's answer seems the most logical for the route i wanna go. I planned on doing it the slow way (finding each drive, but your suggestion sounds much better) thank you all for your answers.

Best answer selected by jomyron.

if you put both drives in the same pc and boot, the second drive will not be bootable anymore, and even if you transfer the drivers to the second drive, it still not going to boot, its not that simple.

once its the second drive in the system, you will not be able to move your software and games over since they use registry keys and the new drive will not have the regkeys, same with drivers, I mean you can copy and paste each game and application over to the new system but they won't run on the new system, well some games might if they don't regkeys like WOW, but some games do use regkeys and they won't transfer over, applications all use regkeys so they won't work.

In short there is no way for you to transfer your windows install and games and apps to the new install, teh only things that can get transfered and work are the media and work files.

We use the mentioned method (getting a new drive, installing os on it, an then installing the original drive with all your files as a second drive), to extract media and work files that are important from the original drive, but the original drive will not boot.

In short as I said in the last post, xp insatalled on another machine will not boot in a different machine, unless the second machine is complete duplicate of the first machine as far as hardware goes.

hmmm it seems to be a variety of tutorials showing how to do it on another computer with different hardware.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5894997_ghost-one-computer-anot...

now on my old computer I don't have any games that use registries (that i know of..I just have an emulator or two, i planned on getting games after i got the new computer)

but the link seems to suggest that it's possible (not sure about all of my programs working, but as long as i know what hte programs are i can always uninstall and reinstall them...(one at a time, instead of all at once if i started with a fresh install)

read that guide again, what does step 10 say?



So after xp does not put cause the hardware is not duplicate, then the windows startup disc is not going to be much help to you either, I know only one way of trying to move a hdd with os and all to a different computer but even that doesn't work every time and needs about 2 hours of work.

every time I have tried to do this the install disk (aka startup disk) has not been able to see the windows install in the new system.

you do it and let us know if you could just boot a clone of this pc in the other one.


The games that don't use regkeys can be just copied and pasted to the new pc, and should work right off, as long as you got all the files and folders they use.

[#0005ff]My suggestion purposely didn't include the use of two clones dual-booting with each other - as has been said, that wouldn't work. However, as long as the boot.ini file shows the clone as the second boot option and the MBR on the primary system is in order, there's no reason why my idea won't fly. The OP's programmes remain exactly where they are now and will still work.[/#000ff]

the apps remain the same place but the regkeys for the apps are on the second drive's xp install and not the new one. In your case the problem is regkeys for the apps.

hmm thank you all for your input. I feel the easiest way (although at first i assumed it'd be the hardest way ;P would be to take a quick video of all the programs on my computer (entire computer/desktop/folders/etc) and just re download them on a completely fresh install of xp. I mean if I do it right it should remain the same speed (actually be MUCH faster considering the new computer will have far better specs than the old) but far more potential.

also my final question :

If my graphics card (an extra bought one) in my old computer burned out, how could i make it so that the computer used its onboard graphics card to show my windows xp screen etc.

cause 8 out of 10 times I'll load my pc (old desktop) and it'll load up past the boot menus and such but when the xp logo shows it's loading symbols the screen shuts off and i can't see anything.

1.5 out of ten times it'll make it past that, but shut off after a little while of being on the desktop (30secs approximately)

.5 times it'll work fine and everything will run fine, but if i run any cpu intensive programs (not photoshop or anything, but stuff like microsoft malicious tool remover) it'll cause the computer to restart.

I figure this computer is on it's last legs anyway (it's a freakin emachines after all.) and i appreciate all that it's been through with me (i've never had pets, so computers have been like my pets, minus the crap/needing to feed/ other undesirable things of pets. ) so it sucks to see it go to be honest (yeah i feel somewhat sad at a computer...DON'T JUDGE ME !!!! (haha ^_^ )

so yeah, would simply taking out the graphics card (extra) cause the cpu to use the inboard (or onboard) graphics card instead, or would i need to do something else?

You need to go into bios and enable onnboard video, if your mobo has one, look up your mobo manual and if it supports it, it will show you were to change it.

If your gpu is faulty, you want that removed from the system anyways.

remember only games and files that don't use regkeys will work with copying over.

Don't copy over main folders like program files, document and settings and folders like that. For example if you try to copy your old "C drive" to the new one, A. it won't be able to do it, B. even if it did, you new xp install would no longer work.

oh, i don't plan on copying anything lol, i'm just going to do a quick video (on my phone) and (on the video) look at all of my programs, so i know what to redownload and install in the new computer. (that seems the easiest and least stressful way lol.

luckily I got alot of junk i used to have on my desktop (dropped off around 50Gigs worth of wait the last time i was on it (it's at home..i'm at college)

so it shouldn't be too long of a video ... (just so i know what programs/games/utilities to download) thanks for the mobo advice (whenever i get home (next week most likely) i'll do that then.

and yeah my mobo has onboard video, because i was using that before i put in the radeon x1650 (two summers ago)

I see long time ago I had to do the same thing when my drive went bad, and back then I didn't clone my drive to an external for a backup, so I had no back, luckly I used the old drive to find out what apps I had to redownload and etc.

now in days I clone my hdd to an external twice a week, so if anything goes wrong, I have a duplicate.

Looks like you got it figured out from here, need anymore help let us know, good luck.

[#0005ff]That's why you would boot from the old system once the dual boot is in place and the machine is capable of starting.[/#000ff]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey