Upgrade XP Home OEM to Retail version of XP Pro

[Guest]

I have a OEM version of home on my PC, and recently, the Motherboard fried
due to a problem with the PSU. I learned that the HDD cannot boot up on
another machine via say USB unless the chipset is identical to that which XP
was originally installed on. Eventually I managed to source a direct MoBo
replacement and all is well again (at the moment)!
I am now slightly bothered that if I lose the MoBo again I am unable to
access everything on the HDD including installed programmes so........ If I
upgrade the OEM version with a retail UPGRADE version of Professional can it
then be booted up in another PC either as an installed HDD or via USB without
any problems?
Thanks

 

[Brian A.]

I have a OEM version of home on my PC, and recently, the Motherboard fried
due to a problem with the PSU. I learned that the HDD cannot boot up on
another machine via say USB unless the chipset is identical to that which XP
was originally installed on. Eventually I managed to source a direct MoBo
replacement and all is well again (at the moment)!
I am now slightly bothered that if I lose the MoBo again I am unable to
access everything on the HDD including installed programmes so........ If I
upgrade the OEM version with a retail UPGRADE version of Professional can it
then be booted up in another PC either as an installed HDD or via USB without
any problems?
Thanks

No, you will have the same hardware issues if you connect it in another PC as the
boot device if that PC doesn't have the same hardware. You'll need to install
drivers that match the hardware in the PC you connect it in. Without the correct
drivers it won't boot properly, however you can access the data on the drive if you
connect it in another PC jumped as a Slave drive. Your applications won't run but
you at least can get at important data.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Paul Randall]

I've had this problem, but I'm still looking for a workable solution. I
like the idea of making a backup of the OS by cloning the original hard
drive. I realize that on the new system on which I try to boot from this
clone, the drive letter must be the same as the drive I cloned from. Then
there is the driver problem.

What if, after making this clone drive, it is installed on the original
system for some modifications. Seems like it should boot up just fine.
Suppose you then go into device manager and delete all the drivers so the
system boots up with generic drivers? Now, shouldn't that drive boot up
properly on almost any motherboard since it is using generic drivers?

-Paul Randall

 

[peter]

Normally when moving the HD from one system using X chipset drivers to
another system using Y chipset drivers a Repair installation is required in
order to correct the driver/hardware situation. By starting the system with
the XP CD in place and going thru the steps for a new installation you will
eventually come to the screen which says to press R to repair the installed
XP.
If that OEM version of XP is a retail copy this will work.....if that OEM XP
CD came with a preinstalled system(HP,Dell,Acer,etc) it will not work as
that version of XP is usually tied to the system in some manner and as such
will not install on anything else.
peter

 

[peter]

Paul..
logically this should work but then there is the problem of the HAL
file....XP creates this file during the install and then compares its
contents to what hardware you have at the time of a new boot.........if
there are sufficient changes XP will decline to boot or ask for
reactivation.
It would be worth a try..................get back to us when you test this
theory and let us know how it went
peter

 

[Brian A.]

I've had this problem, but I'm still looking for a workable solution. I like the
idea of making a backup of the OS by cloning the original hard drive. I realize
that on the new system on which I try to boot from this clone, the drive letter
must be the same as the drive I cloned from. Then there is the driver problem.

AFAIK the drive letter does not have to be the same, yet if you're going to set the
drive as the boot device it has to be a Primary - Active volume.

What if, after making this clone drive, it is installed on the original system for
some modifications. Seems like it should boot up just fine. Suppose you then go
into device manager and delete all the drivers so the system boots up with generic
drivers? Now, shouldn't that drive boot up properly on almost any motherboard
since it is using generic drivers?

In theory sure, but you can't forget about the mobo and it's drivers/firmware/bios.
If the mobo's are exact twins then you can remove it from the equation and do a
Repair install from the get-go to straighten out driver issues. Keep in mind that
not all clones/copies work out off the bat, you "may" run into an MBR issue or other
type of issue that will need your care. With hopes nothing goes wrong and everything
does a bee-line to the OS, have at it.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Unknown]

I have an OEM version on my computer and here is how I solve these problems!
I have an external harddrive and back up my internal C drive once a week.
If I get any corrupt program or file on my C drive I simply restore it from
the backup external drive.
If the boot section of my C drive goes bad I simply restore it.
If I cannot boot from my internal C drive I have a CD I can use to restore
my entire C drive.
If my C drive crashes and I replace it, the CD will Format the new drive and
then copy
my backup to it. I think I have covered all possibilities including virus
protection and malware coverage..

 

[throwitout]

No, you will have the same hardware issues if you connect it in another PC as the
boot device if that PC doesn't have the same hardware. You'll need to install
drivers that match the hardware in the PC you connect it in. Without the correct
drivers it won't boot properly, however you can access the data on the drive if you
connect it in another PC jumped as a Slave drive. Your applications won't run but
you at least can get at important data.

If XP includes drivers for the machine the hard drive is being
transplanted into, wouldn't Windows simply go through hardware
detection / installation procedure and install the required drivers?
Then most likely require a re-activation?

If Windows didn't include drivers for some of the hardware, wouldn't
it be like a normal XP installation where it would load default
drivers if applicable, then you'd simply load the proper drivers?
Again reactivating if required?

I'm currently looking at swapping hard drives between two machines and
was hoping to avoid reinstalling Windows. Windows XP includes drivers
for both machines.

 

[Paul Randall]

AFAIK the drive letter does not have to be the same, yet if you're going
to set the drive as the boot device it has to be a Primary - Active
volume.

The reason that I say the drive letter must be the same is that the registry
contains the full path, including drive letter, to a great many things. So
if you installed WXP on a drive/partition when it was D: then you can only
boot into that OS when its drive/partition is D:.

A few computer generations ago, you could set up the partitioning on your
hard drives and know that no matter what, all partitions would always be
assigned the same drive letters no matter what M$ OS/drive the system booted
from. Now, boot order for drives can be changed in the BIOS. And even that
can be overridden during boot-up. The result is that the drive letter for
any partition can be different on any particular boot-up, depending on the
boot order in the BIOS and the specific drive picked to be first, during
boot-up.

-Paul Randall

 

[Paul Randall]

I like your method except for two things:
1) Depending on how the backup is done and the speed of your external
drive's interface, and the amount of data to be backed up, this can take a
long time. Would you mind telling us how many gigabytes are involved and
how long it takes for your system?
2) You don't mention whether your backup can be validated. I would like to
be able to take that external drive to another computer, run some
program/script, and have it tell me whether it is valid.

-Paul Randall

 

[Brian A.]

I like your method except for two things:
1) Depending on how the backup is done and the speed of your external drive's
interface, and the amount of data to be backed up, this can take a long time.
Would you mind telling us how many gigabytes are involved and how long it takes for
your system?

I run alternating backups using Ghost9 on a seperate local disk and ATI Server
Enterprise on a disk over the network.

Ghost imaging time per image size:
57 minutes - 69.8GB
150 minutes - 219GB

ATI imaging time per image size:
135 minutes - 67.4GB
420 minutes - 217GB

2) You don't mention whether your backup can be validated. I would like to be able
to take that external drive to another computer, run some program/script, and have
it tell me whether it is valid.

Both applications will verify the backups during imaging, after imaging and/or
before restoring.
ATI also has a seperate utility named SnapDeploy which is used in conjunction with
Startup Recovery Manager, it allows the user near instantaneous use of the PC seconds
after a recovery is started.



--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Paul Randall]

I run alternating backups using Ghost9 on a seperate local disk and ATI
Server Enterprise on a disk over the network.

Ghost imaging time per image size:
57 minutes - 69.8GB
150 minutes - 219GB

ATI imaging time per image size:
135 minutes - 67.4GB
420 minutes - 217GB


Both applications will verify the backups during imaging, after imaging
and/or before restoring.
ATI also has a seperate utility named SnapDeploy which is used in
conjunction with Startup Recovery Manager, it allows the user near
instantaneous use of the PC seconds after a recovery is started.

Both methods look very good. Thanks for the info.

-Paul Randall

 

[Unknown]

The first backup takes approximately 23 minutes. All following backups are
variable because only files that have changed are written to the backup
drive. Could you tell me or explain what you would like to do? (validate)?
If you take the external drive to another computer its hardware may be
different..

 

[Unknown]

If you go to the CMS site, they will answer any questions you have.

 

[Unknown]

I use USB2 for backup drive. Weekly backups average about 3 minutes.

 

[Guest]

i have a problem installing new drivers for any devices with driver cd's on
my eom windows home edition computer. my cd roms wont read any driver discs i
try to install, what can i do about this? please please help.