Acronis TrueImage Restore

[FeelLikeANut]

I'm hoping someone here has experience with Acronis TrueImage. I
formatted my desktop and re-installed everything cleanly -- Windows,
anti-virus, Office, etc. All the essentials for a basic system. Once I
had everything perfect, I used TrueImage to make and burn a backup of
the system to a DVD disc. Then I restored that backup on my laptop, so
it should have a duplicate of my "perfect system." Now when my laptop
boots, the initial "Windows XP" screen shows for a split-second, and
then the computer just reboots.

Does anyone have experience creating a system image and restoring it
on another computer? I'd really like to figure out where I went wrong.

Thanks.

 

[Wandering]

You backed up all your desk top drivers along with the operating system,
and then installed them on totally different equipment. Laptops rarely get
along with desktop video, audio, usb port, and other drivers. Laptop drivers
are often specific to the exact model and brand, and must be obtained from
the original vendor's website, or sometimes they will sell you a disk.

You will probably have to use your laptop Operating system disk to do at
least a repair install, but it's likely that will fail too.

Copying the full operating system from one computer to another unless they
are nearly identical is usually a failure.

If you can restore your laptop, and then backup all the system drivers
separately, you may be able to install them onto a transferred system, but
if it won't boot, it won't work.

Others here may have betters ideas, but I think you are in a world of hurt
if you don't have the original disks for your laptop, or can get some. I
know this is not what you want to hear. Good luck!

 

[Paul]

I'm hoping someone here has experience with Acronis TrueImage. I
formatted my desktop and re-installed everything cleanly -- Windows,
anti-virus, Office, etc. All the essentials for a basic system. Once I
had everything perfect, I used TrueImage to make and burn a backup of
the system to a DVD disc. Then I restored that backup on my laptop, so
it should have a duplicate of my "perfect system." Now when my laptop
boots, the initial "Windows XP" screen shows for a split-second, and
then the computer just reboots.

Does anyone have experience creating a system image and restoring it
on another computer? I'd really like to figure out where I went wrong.

Thanks.

Um, aren't the chipset and peripheral chips completely different
between the two computers ?

You can do what you're trying to do, if you follow the Acronis
restore, immediately by a Repair Install. That will not disturb
your settings, neither will it upset your applications. But it
will require reinstalling any missing Service Packs, security
updates from Windows Update, reinstalling any versions of Internet
Explorer more recent than the one that comes with the installer
CD, and so on.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

You can build a better install CD, with something like Nlite, if
you can figure out how to use it. Using Autostreamer, to incorporate
a Service Pack, to my Windows installer CD, is more my speed (nothing
to set up). What you'd be attempting to do here, is incorporate
as much of the Windows updating as possible, into an install CD,
so that the next time you have to do a Repair Install, there is
less incremental effort, to get the OS "current".

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

Paul

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

Does anyone have experience creating a system image and restoring it
on another computer? I'd really like to figure out where I went wrong.

You're a moron.

That's where you went wrong.

 

[FeelLikeANut]

I didn't install any drivers on the desktop for exactly that reason.
Windows default/preloaded drivers are sufficient for the desktop to
run. The same is true for the laptop. I would think that Windows could
make the transition, essentially, by detecting new hardware. Is that a
bad assumption?

 

[Paul]

I didn't install any drivers on the desktop for exactly that reason.
Windows default/preloaded drivers are sufficient for the desktop to
run. The same is true for the laptop. I would think that Windows could
make the transition, essentially, by detecting new hardware. Is that a
bad assumption?

I've succeeded in doing a transfer from one machine to another, by
using the default Microsoft IDE driver on the original machine, and
the machine receiving the disk was also compatible with the Microsoft
provided IDE driver. So it can be done. (Awful driver mess to clean up,
and many reboots, but it worked. My transfer was done while using Win2K.)
But if you want a solution that is guaranteed to work under all
circumstances, you cannot rely on something like that. Some of the
modes the chipsets run in, really need the manufacturer's drivers
(AHCI, NCQ, RAID, take your pick of acronym-of-the-week). If you want
a recipe with better odds of working, a Repair Install is a better
bet. And even then, there may be cases where "the wheels fall off"
and you have to start over again. I see the occasional mention of
that.

Paul

 

[Wandering]

Of course you may believe what you wish, but the operating system as it runs
on your desktop included all the installed drivers, by you or by Windows,
and these are not the proper drivers for your laptop. It has its own
drivers, and they are quite different.

When Windows first starts to boot, it loads all the drivers selected by the
operating system first. When it has done that successfully, it loads
Windows. If it cannot find the drivers, the default condition is to restart
on the assumption that they should be there, and were somehow not properly
read. If they are not there, and for you laptop they are NOT there, it just
keeps restarting.

There is no point in arguing this. What you see above is what IS, what you
read from your text below is what you wish it were.

The method you chose simply does not work. No need to take my word for it.
Just watch your laptop try to boot the desktop drivers....

 

[Wandering]

Yes, Paul, it can work if the systems are very similar, but as you
discovered even then it's not easy. I bet your second I bet both your
machines were either desktop or same-brand laptops. Laptops are notorious
for their brand-specific, model-specific, unique drivers.

 

[Paul]

Yes, Paul, it can work if the systems are very similar, but as you
discovered even then it's not easy. I bet your second I bet both your
machines were either desktop or same-brand laptops. Laptops are
notorious for their brand-specific, model-specific, unique drivers.

I class it as a "trick", because you have to know something about
the chipsets involved. In my case, both desktop computers
used Intel chipsets, and they have a compatibility mode you
can use. The "trick" is not general purpose, which is why
I wouldn't suggest it to someone as a cure. Other chipsets
really need their own driver, something you'd install with
F6 during a Repair Install.

Paul

 

[llort]

I'm hoping someone here has experience with Acronis TrueImage. I
formatted my desktop and re-installed everything cleanly -- Windows,
anti-virus, Office, etc. All the essentials for a basic system. Once I
had everything perfect, I used TrueImage to make and burn a backup of
the system to a DVD disc. Then I restored that backup on my laptop, so
it should have a duplicate of my "perfect system." Now when my laptop
boots, the initial "Windows XP" screen shows for a split-second, and
then the computer just reboots.

Does anyone have experience creating a system image and restoring it
on another computer? I'd really like to figure out where I went wrong.

Thanks.

TI is for making back-up images to that same PC. You need their other
produce (Migrate Easy?) to "clone" to another PC. Have a look here and ask:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php

Llort

 

[Wandering]

Yes, he needed a clone tool, and that option exists in TI though he didn't
use it.. But it is still limited to systems that are fairly similar and not
for the faint of heart as Paul attests. He's dealing with the worst
possible case in moving between a desktop and a laptop. Nor does he mention
brand, chipsets, video systems, and such. Laptop stuff just isn't desktop
stuff....

I hope he has a copy of the original laptop disks, without them he's in a
world of hurt.

Good luck to all, and think hard before venturing down this road.

I have friends who maintain hundreds of apparently identical PCs, and they
still have problems with this trick.

I really don't have anything more to add, so bye...

 

[- Bobb -]

I'm hoping someone here has experience with Acronis TrueImage. I
formatted my desktop and re-installed everything cleanly -- Windows,
anti-virus, Office, etc. All the essentials for a basic system. Once I
had everything perfect, I used TrueImage to make and burn a backup of
the system to a DVD disc. Then I restored that backup on my laptop, so
it should have a duplicate of my "perfect system." Now when my laptop
boots, the initial "Windows XP" screen shows for a split-second, and
then the computer just reboots.

Does anyone have experience creating a system image and restoring it
on another computer? I'd really like to figure out where I went wrong.

Thanks.

The phone's ringing ... it's for you ... Microsoft's lawyer holding.

You backup up system A and reinstalled on system B. Think of it as
instructions/directions. On the original/ same model system, the
directions are the same. ( Left/ then 2 rights/ 2 lefts ...) You installed
on a DIFFERENT pc and "how to get from here to there" is TOTALLY
different. All of a laptop's stuff is done internally on a few chips and
on the desktop it MIGHT use separate parts of machine, so when you tell
XP to "turn on the network" it's instructions to new different CPU have
NOTHING to do with a network ( or video etc) . The desktop may have a $300
video card at address 123 and the address of the laptop's video is at 456.
The CPU starts out with basic video OK, then XP tells it to use address
123- XP doesn't know how to "do what you told it" / crashes and reboots.

 

[Anteaus]

The usual reason is a differnce in the IDE disk driver.

You can often get round this by selecting "Standard PCI IDE driver" before
making the image. Unfortunately I don't know of any way to make this change
to a nonbooting image.

Incidentally in most countries there is no legal reason why you should not
copy an OS between two computers, both of which are licensed to run (the same
version of) that OS. Some vendors will try to enforce such restrictions, but
it may well be they who are acting illegally (under Trading Standards
legislation) in preventing you from doing so. If you have paid for a licence
you are entitled to use the licensed product on the licensed hardware. The
exact position may depend on the country or state, of course.

The phone's ringing ... it's for you ... Microsoft's lawyer holding.

Never mind the lawyers. If black Microsoft helicopters turn up, _then_ you
should be afraid. Be very afraid. =8-0

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

The phone's ringing ... it's for you ... Microsoft's lawyer holding.

Why would Microsoft give a rat's __ ? It's entirely possible the OP has a
license for each PC and is using the retail version of XP.

You backup up system A and reinstalled on system B. Think of it as
instructions/directions. On the original/ same model system, the
directions are the same. ( Left/ then 2 rights/ 2 lefts ...) You
installed on a DIFFERENT pc and "how to get from here to there" is
TOTALLY different. All of a laptop's stuff is done internally on a
few chips and on the desktop it MIGHT use separate parts of machine, so
when you tell XP to "turn on the network" it's instructions to new
different CPU have NOTHING to do with a network ( or video etc) . The
desktop may have a $300 video card at address 123 and the address of
the laptop's video is at 456. The CPU starts out with basic video OK,
then XP tells it to use address 123- XP doesn't know how to "do what
you told it" / crashes and reboots.

To the OP: you'd need Acronis' "universal restore" plugin for TrueImage -
which is not offered in the workstation version IIRC, and is not 100%
seamless anyway.

Bottom line - unless you have fairly identical hardware, you can't simply
image. You can *try* doing a repair install on the laptop now, tho.

 

[Anteaus]

The phone's ringing ... it's for you ... Microsoft's lawyer holding.

Never mind the lawyers, watch out for the black MS helicopters. =8-0

Provided both machines have a COA for the same product, there is nothing
illegal in imaging form one to the other. (At least, not under most
countries' laws.)

The nonboot problem is most likely an IDE disk driver incompatibility.
Sometimes this can be avoided by changing the driver to "Standard PCI IDE
driver" before imaging. Unfortunately I don't know of any way to correct the
problem on a nonbooting image. The other resolution is a Repair Install.