Can an image of an entire hard drive that was made on one computer be successfully restored to an entirely new computer? Situation is: My sister's computer crashed and since it was very old she got a new computer. She has a total backup of her entire hard drive from the old machine, but the computer store she used is saying they can't restore the image to the new machine. Are they right, or blowin' smoke up her skirt? I think I know, but sure would like some "expert" opinions. Thanks.
yes it is possible to do bare metal restore acronis trueimage with universal restore can do it, if it was a retail OS but if it was branded machine it would need to be same brand also if it is XP and say her new machine came with windows 7 some may not come with SLP 1.0 for xp. But to be honest why would you want to fresh install is better unless you don't have a branded machine. Some more info would be better is it self built computer did it come with windows if so what version is it branded and was old machine branded.
You may get a BSOD on first boot, but a repair install will take care of that. Some other incidentals can be taken care of at that time, as you shold have 30days after a repair install. The ideal situation, and for future reference, you should revert the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller to standard controller before backup..this will all but insure no BSOD when either moving image, or changing mainboards. You should simply be prepared to run a repair install and not expect it to be turn key. Another option is to use a VM and convert the image to a virtual disc for the virtual machine. Many softwares offer this option, I believe acronis is one.. More information is definitely needed before a concrete answer can be given, but I believe the chances are good it can be done..Another question is what was involved in the crash..was the HD toasted or other??? Sounds like the usual Tech BS..lazy as most are and wanting to sell new OS...Maybe find another tech???
Her old machine was a "FrankenGateway"! When I said old I meant old. It's case was replaced but I think the insides were still Gateway; not sure. Anyway, it was at least 12 years old! The new one is a store machine with a Gigabyte mother board. Old and new OS were and are WinXP Home. I totally agree with the fresh install idea, but was not possible in this case as her soon to be ex husband stole most all of her program disks! Store said that they tried "everything", but the new machine just wouldn't boot with the old image loaded. They did not say if they tried a repair install after loading the Acronis image from her external drive using the Acronis boot disk I sent her.
See my reply to urie for more info. Crash happened after I tried to install pcAnywhere on her machine via a Team Viewer remote connection. It would hang with 2 seconds left at the creating icons point. It would then not let me either install nor uninstall it as it kept saying there was already an install taking place when I tried either. Finally used Revouninstaller and just let it remove all the registry entries for the program. Machine then would boot as far as the welcome screen and the green bar moving across the screen but then the screen would go black. Windows appeared to be running as her antivirus program could be heard announcing that it had updated, but it would not respond to keyboard commands to reboot or shut down. It also would not boot into safe mode nor boot to a CD boot disk. The techs spent about two hours on it and said that they could get it running (probably) in a couple more hours. It was then I decided to not pour any more money into that antique as they said they could restore her old Acronis image onto a new machine. Now they are telling me that the new machine will not boot with the old image restored. As I said to urie, no mention of a repair install! Looks like I'll have take a trip to Las Vegas and see if I can do anything if you think it might be fixable. Thanks for the response, Dr.
what about the acronis on this machine? Maybe boot to winternals or PE cd. If you can get into a Linux environment, you can likely fix the machine. Where is the old image stored? I am unclear if you mean wont boot to any disc, or just windows. This is controlled by the bios and is OS independant..a borked win install should have no bearing on booting to dos disc.
I think maybe the drive was messing things up. Several people confirmed that it would not boot into safe mode, not would it boot to a CD. Somehow, the techs must have gotten it working somewhat anyway, as they did recover all her data from the old drive and transfered it to her new computer. The new machine is up and running for now. I hope to be able to check out her old machine in a couple weeks. I'll bring my PE disk with me and see what I can do with it. FWIW, the image was stored on an external drive so it really shouldn't have been that hard to install it unless the drive was buggered. Shop manager confirmed that they did try a repair install on the new computer, but it was unsuccessful. Thank you very much for all of your suggestions. I'll post a quick note when I get back from my sister's and let you know if I figured anything out!
Since the system did not finish installing PCanywhere, and knowing that such remote software usualy installs a video hook driver, and IF this thing did not complete properly, then this would explain the symptoms exactly, like starting Windows with universal VGA driver, then blanking screen, then (when the system specific video driver PLUS hook driver should start) screen remains blank, but system appears to be working, connecting to the internet etc, but without showing anything on screen. First thing I would try is VGA resolution from safe mode option, however the last known hardware settings would not work because the systems actually STARTS each time, but give this a try anyway. If there is a way of working remotely on the system (like the way you tried to install PCanywhere over Team Viewer) since the machine appears to be working, then use an older system restore point, actually the PCanywhere install would create such a restore point (unless you had turned that thing off). Sure, they wanted to sell a new machine, does that sound strange to you? SECOND THOUGHTS: I am not even sure it is possible to install remote access software using other remote access software, because the new remote access software would try to install a video hook driver, but the already present remote access software has a different video hook driver installed and working, how would all of that compute? An exception to the above would be a Windows native remote access thing like Remote Desktop, using that to install other remote access software could work, however at the moment of actual installation of the new hook driver, the screen connection could momentarily break (seeing it remotely) as the existing video driver would have to stop and restart along with the new hook driver.
We wanted to try just what you suggested, but since we were unable to actually see anything, it was impossible to accomplish anything within Windows. The machine also would not respond to F8 so even booting into safe mode was impossible. Nobody had any explanation for this by the way. I am going to be visiting my sister in a month, so I will be able to do a "hands on" with her old machine. Your suggestions will give me a couple of places to work from. Thank you very much for the help!
One more thing that would propably be worth trying, as a LAST resort would be to open the box and remove the existing VGA card, then install a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT card, then start the system, this would cause Windows to drop the existing video driver and IF the replacement card is of some specific cheapo kind (like the S3 Trio 3D/2S kind or the S3 savage, or something) for which the system does NOT have a video driver, then the system would HAVE to use the existing universal VGA driver (the one used during initial startup, when you see the Windows Logo), hopefully dropping the hook driver(s) as well. Something like forcing an F8 plus VGA mode, without using F8 (sort of). This is a last resort method only, definitely NOT the first thing to try, since the system could stop with a dialog box that you could not see if the method does not work, then restoring the original video card COULD fail to bring the system to prior (working with no screen) condition, ruining the chance of accessing the system remotely via Team Viewer.
A couple more things about F8 not working at startup. For one, you have to press F8 yourself in the right manner (repeatedly) and during the right split second for the system to accept it, so I personally do not trust anyone telling me that F8 did not work unless I am there to press it myself. Another thing is, make sure you are not using any kind of modern (like USB type, let alone WIRELESS type and I wouldn't even mention combination mouse and keyboard types, using one wire or one wireless receiver etc) keyboard on the system while trying to get in with F8. You need to use ONLY the old type wired PS/2 (round plug) keyboard, as any old system would not have BIOS USB keyboard support at all, or it could have it but it could be disabled in BIOS, then the keyboard would only be read AFTER Windows loads the USB drivers, but that would be too late for F8 to function. With the wrong keyboard you would not even be able to get into BIOS MENU, but once Windows loads, then that USB keyboard would function OK. BTW, any remote access software will install hook drivers for keyboard / mouse as well, however these drivers are not loaded / started in the time frame that F8 is read so it shouldn't affect your situation if such a hook driver malfunctions.