Ghost and XP system transfer

[Airman Thunderbird]

Have used the method here:
http://www.mostlycreativeworkshop.com/article11.html
to move several systems to new hardware, with excellent results.
However, the last two times I tried it, after moving the hard drives to
new motherboards, they wouldn't boot. Both gave the NTloader not found
error. The first time, I was moving from one VIA chipset board to
another, so I tried installing an old GHOST image of the system to the
new hardware. It booted and worked fine.

The second time was a more radical hardware change, so after moving the
hard drive and getting the same error, I GHOSTed that system and
immediately reinstalled on the same partition. Glory be, it worked and
booted fine.

Guess my question is, why did that work, and what did GHOST do to make
the thing boot? Would FIXBOOT from the recovery console have done the
same thing?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Airman Thunderbird" <[email protected]>

| Have used the method here:
| http://www.mostlycreativeworkshop.com/article11.html
| to move several systems to new hardware, with excellent results.
| However, the last two times I tried it, after moving the hard drives to
| new motherboards, they wouldn't boot. Both gave the NTloader not found
| error. The first time, I was moving from one VIA chipset board to
| another, so I tried installing an old GHOST image of the system to the
| new hardware. It booted and worked fine.
|
| The second time was a more radical hardware change, so after moving the
| hard drive and getting the same error, I GHOSTed that system and
| immediately reinstalled on the same partition. Glory be, it worked and
| booted fine.
|
| Guess my question is, why did that work, and what did GHOST do to make
| the thing boot? Would FIXBOOT from the recovery console have done the
| same thing?

It worked becuase they most likely shared many of the same motherboard chip-sets.

A Ghosted drive on an Intel 845 chip-set will fail on a system with a Via chip-set.

A Ghosted drive on an Intel 845 chip-set *may* work on a system with a with an Intel 815
chip-set.

YMMV

It isn't the peripheral hardware that counts (NIC, Video, Audo, SCSI, etc., they will Plug
'n Play) it is the motherboard chip-set that counts. For all intents and purpose always
Ghost between like model platforms.

 

[SeaMaid]

What about an Intel 865 chipset going to an Intel 900-something chipset?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "SeaMaid" <[email protected]>

| What about an Intel 865 chipset going to an Intel 900-something chipset?
|

It is really hard to say. For all intents and purpose only clone like models. For example
create a image of a Dell GX-240 and restore to a Dell GX240. Restoration to a Dell GX-400
will certainly fail.

However I have successfuly cloned various IBM ThinkPad notebooks; A20, A21 and A22 using
the same image because they use the same chip-set.

You can try cloning a system based upon a Intel 865 to an Intel 900 chip-set but it will
most likely fail. You *may* be able go from a newer chip-set to an older chip-set but there
are *many* variables involved so one can't tell.

Of course... YMMV

 

[Airman QPD]

The link I used:
http://www.mostlycreativeworkshop.com/article11.html
exactly addresses the problems you speak of, and has always worked in
the past, with wildly disimilar motherboards and chipsets. My question
was why did it stop working, and why a GHOST image worked.