Sysprep & CloningHard Dsiks in Windows XP Pro SP2

[Uncle John]

I would like a comment on the need to use Sysprep before upgrading a system
SATA disk, please.

I have a pair of SATA Seagate ST3120026AS disks on my system, disk 1 is the
system disk and cloned daily for backup to disk 2 which is idle. I am
planning to upgrade them with Western Raptors and clone the system disk to
the new disk in Windows, switching disk 2 in the bios so that it is the boot
disk for that purpose.

I checked the procedure with Acronis who said I could:

" replace Disk 1 and Disk 2 with the new ones in the way you have
described, but please remember that in order to clone your Windows system to
a different hardware, you should first prepare Windows using Microsoft
System Preparation Tool (Sysprep)
http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/faq.html#17"

Is it really necessary in XP Pro when upgrading hard drives and not making
any other changes?

 

[Guest]

According to Microsoft you can change any three of the 10 items used to
generate the hardware key except the network card which for some reason is
worth three. The 10 hardware characteristics used to determine the hardware
hash are:
1. Display Adapter,
2. SCSI Adapter,
3. IDE Adapter,
4. Network Adapter MAC Address,
5. RAM Amount Range (i.e. 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc),
6. Processor Type,
7. Processor Serial Number,
8. Hard Drive Device,
9. Hard Drive Volume Serial Number,
10. CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM

Changing a hard drive appears to count as two devices. "Hard Drive
Device, and Hard Drive Volume Serial Number".

So a single change of Hard Drive would not in itself drive you over the '3'
limit, however it pays to always work with a safety net.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Uncle John" <[email protected]>

| I would like a comment on the need to use Sysprep before upgrading a system
| SATA disk, please.
|
| I have a pair of SATA Seagate ST3120026AS disks on my system, disk 1 is the
| system disk and cloned daily for backup to disk 2 which is idle. I am
| planning to upgrade them with Western Raptors and clone the system disk to
| the new disk in Windows, switching disk 2 in the bios so that it is the boot
| disk for that purpose.
|
| I checked the procedure with Acronis who said I could:
|
| " replace Disk 1 and Disk 2 with the new ones in the way you have
| described, but please remember that in order to clone your Windows system to
| a different hardware, you should first prepare Windows using Microsoft
| System Preparation Tool (Sysprep)
| http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/faq.html#17"
|
| Is it really necessary in XP Pro when upgrading hard drives and not making
| any other changes?
|
| --
| Uncle John
|

I can't see a need to Sysprep for that reason.

 

[Uncle John]

Thanks for your help. I have made the change with out Sysprep and it is OK.