You will lose your win7 activation when transferring over to the new machine (I think). I'm not entirely sure how the win7 oem activation works for different hardware. Why would you want to transfer the Thinkpad drivers?
Why aren't you just doing the VHD method and THEN come back if it fails, you are just wasting your time. No need to touch your existing installation, if your new VHDX fails to boot just sysprep it, don't sysprep your old laptop. Seriously stop asking and start doing
PS: Can Disk2VHD be run from Commandline or Win PE type system or something without Booting into the Disk being P2Ved to VHD? I'd prefer to IMAGE to VHD without having that Disk & Windows Instance running. - I am aware of Windows 7 activation issues. So I'll have to figure that one out. - If there is any way to activate Windows 7 on a Win 8 laptop via the post SLIC 2.1 OEM 'stuff' in the BIOS, I'd love to know. - I'd consider redoing it based on Toshiba Cert/Key activation. If not OEM then retail KMS licensing activation. - I do not wish to transfer the Thinkpad Drivers - I wanted to know how DRIVERS are handled by Disk2VHD and VHD post native booting. - Does it store drivers or sanitizes the VHD or keeps them and requests new drivers for NEW machine? - Makes sense to play with the VHD. But, this is my primary machine so BEFORE messing with it.. - I'd like to have ADDITIONAL CLARITY on VHDs & the way they HANDLE their HARDWARE/ DEVICE DRIVERS Can you help with that? No one seems to have so far given me a clear understanding of what happens to the DRIVER profiles attached to Windows. - Before VHD creation - After VHD creation - On First NATIVE BOOT of VHD on new machine - Later NATIVE BOOT of VHD with new machine drivers ??
You don't get answers from me because nothing of what you want to know matters, use KMS to activate it. Whats so hard seriously? Create VHD, boot into VHD onto same machine, sysprep it (if you care so much), reboot into main os, transfer it over to your new laptop, add the boot entry, boot into it and install some KMS tool and voila. You are not going to get any more answers from me related to this, you either try or you don't... couldn't care less.
PS: This will not have issues with a 256GB Partition I hope. It matters because this new 4K Toshiba laptop may or may not have Win 7 drivers or compatibility issues. I may transfer the VHD back to Source or to another laptop in near future. So, I'd like to understand how VHD's handle drivers (atleast even if only at surface level). Are they HAL/ driver abstract or they store drivers differently. Or they use HOST drivers (like VMs)? The steps do not seem hard. The process means a lot of downtime for me (from other work) so I like to do my homework and not come here with DRIVER issues afterwards. I will try it out. But, knowing or having some article that talks about how VHD's handle DRIVERS as they are moved from machine to machine would be good to know. If you know something please share it. If you do not know thats fine as well. If you do not wish to share or post a link to that.. well thank you for your help so far.
vhd boot is NATIVE HARDWARE apart from the hard disk (which is the very vhd) As to drivers? You already KNOW what hardware is in Tosh, so just look up & check if Win7 drivers exist (99% most likely) Or just go to Tosh site & see if they provide them (quite few do even if sold with Win 8) Do not make it more of an issue then it really is sebus
I am going to run Disk2VHD tonight. Now based on SysInternals forums there seem to be some issue recently with newest version 2.0x of Disk2VHD versus previous version 1.64. Which have you reliably used many times? Also, I did another Drive last night and it created .VHD. Do I need VHDX? What are the differences / pros & cons between both?
I am getting this with the VHDX boot. Thoughts? I am sure this is a regular occurrence that has an easy fix. Code: When I reboot, the screen where I can choose OS appears, I choose Windows 7 but a black screen with this message shows; File: \windows\system32\winload.efi Status: 0xc0000428 Info: The digital signature for this file couldn't be verified If it helps, this Win 7 instance first had a 200MB Boot partition ahead of it and then it was eliminated and all of it included into the Win7 partition. A snippet from BCDEDIT output Code: Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {LongHexKey} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX path \Windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows 7 locale en-us inherit {bootloadersettings} osdevice vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX systemroot \Windows resumeobject {LongHexKey} nx OptIn detecthal Yes VHD File is in C Drive at pointed out location When mounted/ attached from Windows 8 host instance it shows up as E: drive as there is DVD at D: Any thoughts?