Cloning XP Pro (legally)... and failing !

[Guest]

To start with :
-I have a first PC (call it "A") running XP Pro International English
(version 2002), 4 years without a problem. SP2 has been added to it in due
time. Many many applications for my work environment.
-I buy a computer "B", same motherboard as A, different version of CPU, HDD
and DRAM. I want my assistant to find on it the exact same work environment I
have on A. For B I buy another XP Pro International etc (box, call it "B"),
same version, with fresh license.
My idea for setting up computer B is to "clone" the entire system from A,
then do a repair install with B installation CD, having B Windows activated
in the process.
What I did :
- Made image of entire system of A, having the B HDD plugged temporarily in
A machine (used DriveImage, no problem)
- Restaured this image into a previously prepared primary partition of B
HDD, always with DriveImage, no problem found
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot at this stage, but was
not a surprise to me given the different hardware configuration
- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating B Windows from MSI's
original B CD and SP2 downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD, went into
"repair" mode, and encountered a huge number of situations where "Setup
cannot copy the file..." (always for files contained in I386), which I
deliberately "jumped" (I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD
and have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was able to activate
this B Windows, working in Safe mode and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.
Today's deficiencies (in "Normal Start" mode) :
- no Windows Explorer
- no wallpaper
- Windows Installer does not run and asks me to put the Office XP Standard
installation CD, which ends up with a crash
- tried to install up-to-date Windows Installer (3.1.4000.4039) from a
download, but does no good because the installation is not complete
- in other words, computer not usable !

Anybody has experience of this (crazy) unertaking ?
Thanks in advance for your contirbutions.

 

[Guest]

Having the same MB helps somewhat...Either way,install other hd 2nd pc, to
master pc A,set jumper pins accordingly,format the slave in xp,once thru,go
to run,type:XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in the DOS window,once
its thru,2nd hd is as C: in A pc...Also,D: being 2nd hd,but if asigned
diffrent letter
then use that instead.Also,after you install in 2nd pc,you might boot to xp
cd,
select install xp,repair this copy,only updates would be lost,no user
data.Otherwise
it should boot up,its the switching of pcs that leave some questions...

 

[Timothy Daniels]

To start with :
-I have a first PC (call it "A") running XP Pro.....
-I buy a computer "B", same motherboard as A, different version
of CPU, HDD and DRAM. I want [.....] on it the exact same
work environment I have on A. For B I buy another XP Pro....,
same version, with fresh license. My idea for setting up
computer B is to "clone" the entire system from A,
then do a repair install with B installation CD, having B Windows
activated in the process.
What I did :
- Made image of entire system of A, having the B HDD plugged
temporarily in A machine (used DriveImage, no problem)
- Restaured this image into a previously prepared primary partition
of B HDD, always with DriveImage, no problem found
[etc., etc.]

It would probably help in getting a reply to clarify what you
mean by "to clone" and "to image" and "to restore". Clones are
exact byte-for-byte copies of the contents of one HD's partition(s)
to another HD's partition(s). An image is a file, usually compressed,
that contains enough information to re-create the source HD's contents
from its compressed form on an archival medium to its expanded
form on the destination HD in a process called "restoring the image".
Did you actually "image" HDD A, or did you make a clone of it?
If you made an image of HDD A and put that into a partition on
HDD B, and then restored the image to a 2nd partition on HDD B,
you may not have set the 2nd partition to "active" and changed its
boot.ini file's rdisk() value from "rdisk(0)" to "rdisk(1)".
If you made a clone, was HDD A connected or disconnected when
you started up the clone on HDD B for the FIRST time?
Was the 2nd partition on HDD B a primary partition?
What did the original OS call its own partition?

I suggest you try this: Get a modern imaging utility written for
Windows XP (i.e. post DriveImage). This could be Ghost,
True Image, or Casper. Then make a CLONE of the OS's
partition on HDD A onto a partition of HDD B. Ghost and
Casper can do individual partition clones in the event that you
have more than one partition on HDD A and all that you want
to clone is just the OS's partition. If you want to clone *all*
the partitions on HDD A and put them onto HDD B, any of
the big 3 cloning utilities can do that, and most HDD makers
make such a utility available on their websites as a free download
that will work just for their brand of HDDs. All these utilities
will give you the option to let them use the formatting that already
exists in the clone so that no formatting is necessary on HDD B -
the formatting is *part* of the bytes that are transferred. If the
utility gives you the option to make the destination partition
"active" and to copy the MBR as well, take the options. The
other utilities will assume this for you.

Once you have the clone on HDD B, shut down PC A and
disconnect HDD A. *Then* restart PC A. The new clone on
HDD B should then boot up because everything on HDD B
thinks that it is on HDD A. Verify that all is cool, then shut
down PC A again, and remove HDD B and re-connect HDD A.
Or, if you want more time to compare files on the 2 OSes, you
can put a new folder on the clone's Desktop with the name
"Clone" or use a different Desktop background image to make
it immediately obvious which HDD's OS is running. *Then*
shut down PC A, and re-connect HDD A. Upon restarting,
HDD A should again get control, and its OS should boot up.
HDD B will be visible to the old OS, and the clone OS will
be visible as just data on another partition that is named
something other than the old original partition (which is probably
named "C:"). That is, although the old OS will call its own
partition by the old name (probably "C:") when it runs, the
clone will also call its own partition by that name ("C:") - but
only when the *clone* is running. Each running OS will tempor-
arily rename the other partitions. This not a problem as long
as there are no shortcuts in either OS that refer to other partitions.

Remember in all of this that the the *clone* must not see its
"parent" OS before it has been started up and shut down for its
FIRST RUN. Thereafter, it is OK for the clone to see its "parent"
OS at any time. But that is not the case for the "parent" OS as it's
*always* OK for the "parent" OS to see its clone.

Re-post your question once you have gotten this far as putting
the clone into PC B is another matter.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.

How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?

- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":
http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD contains the same
version of Windows which is currently installed on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Many thanks to you, Timothy, and also to Andrew !

The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome and it will take me
some time to answer your questions intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently, in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning as you describe it.
By the way and commenting about Andrew's method, is it just a convenient way
of cloning that he describes ?

I will be back here in a couple of days.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Many thanks to you, Timothy, and also to Andrew !

The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
By the way and commenting about Andrew's method,
is it just a convenient way of cloning that he describes ?

I will be back here in a couple of days.

Claude, I suggest that you do a brief groups.google
search on "Andrew. E.". You will see that he is just a
disinformation troll. As a matter of fact, in the last 24
hours, an MVP invited him to leave.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Claude, I suggest that you do a brief groups.google
search on "Andrew. E.". You will see that he is just a
disinformation troll. As a matter of fact, in the last 24
hours, an MVP invited him to leave.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

Many thanks for your kind warning !
Now, back to your suggested procedure ; I thought I could go through it
tonight, having found some time for it. But I found an unexpected obstacle,
for which I cannot do otherwise than bother you a little more. In brief :
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into machine A (as HDD1,
whereas A's proper drive is registered as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows disk manager
(incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been careful to make it an
active primary partition first time I organized HDD B and it keeps this
status although I have reformatted it)
- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking to do a
good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered that it cannot
identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4) and this for the first
time since I have had this software
- put off, I decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a message "You
must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk for being able to use
MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are not recognized, which is not
so much of a surprise considering that MaxBlast is an Acronis product like
TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put in BIOS, with
drive letters OK etc etc...
Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?
Anyhow, I am blocked in my cloning attempt !

With many thanks and greetings,

Claude

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Claude, I suggest that you do a brief groups.google
search on "Andrew. E.". You will see that he is just a
disinformation troll. As a matter of fact, in the last 24
hours, an MVP invited him to leave.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into machine A (as HDD1,
whereas A's proper drive is registered as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows disk manager
(incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been careful to make it an
active primary partition first time I organized HDD B and it keeps this
status although I have reformatted it)

You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?

- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking to do a
good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered that it cannot
identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4) and this for the first
time since I have had this software
- put off, I decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a message "You
must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk for being able to use
MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are not recognized, which is not
so much of a surprise considering that MaxBlast is an Acronis product like
TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put in BIOS,
with drive letters OK etc etc...
Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?

Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

:
:
:
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.


How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?


- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":

http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD contains
the
same
version of Windows which is currently installed on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*


Many thanks to you, Timothy, and also to Andrew !

The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
By the way and commenting about Andrew's method,
is it just a convenient way of cloning that he describes ?

I will be back here in a couple of days.
--
From Claude, with greetings from Paris.

Claude, I suggest that you do a brief groups.google
search on "Andrew. E.". You will see that he is just a
disinformation troll. As a matter of fact, in the last 24
hours, an MVP invited him to leave.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into machine A (as HDD1,
whereas A's proper drive is registered as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows disk manager
(incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been careful to make it an
active primary partition first time I organized HDD B and it keeps this
status although I have reformatted it)

You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?

- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking to do a
good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered that it cannot
identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4) and this for the first
time since I have had this software
- put off, I decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a message "You
must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk for being able to use
MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are not recognized, which is not
so much of a surprise considering that MaxBlast is an Acronis product like
TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put in BIOS,
with drive letters OK etc etc...
Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?

Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

Again, thank you for the time spent and the dedication !
This time, I post for telling you that I succeeded in reaching the end point
of your post of June 28 / 12:14am. So, all is well.
But for academic purposes and for passing experience to others, I can
explain a little bit as my previous descriptions have been too vague.
I started the cloning operation having in machine A :
- a HDD that I call "A", known of BIOS as HDD0, hooked to IDE 0 channel as
a "master" ; it contains two partitions, one being C:\ (primary and active)
carrying the system that I intend to clone into machine B ("cloning" being
this time used in the sense that you taught me)
- a HDD that I call "B", known of BIOS as HDD1, hooked to IDE 1 channel as a
"slave" (master is CD drive on this channel) ; it carries 5 partitions (for
"historic" reasons), one has been pre-formatted by me as an active primary
for receiving the clone ; actually I formatted it for getting rid of the
"image + restore" rubbish that I had put into it in my previous
experimentation ; the other 4 are all logical partitions, grouped into an
"extended" primary
- the boot sequence is as follows : CD drive, then HDD0, then HDD1.
Am I sufficiently explicit ?
Anyhow, the story is now as follows :
- TrueImage refused to recognize my hard drives (see earlier post)
- I tried MaxBlast and it told me that I did not have in my machine a single
Seagate/Maxtor HDD, which made me laugh as you can imagine...
- I asked for help from the Seagate/Maxtor people, they did not deliver in
time
- I downloaded the 30 day-trial version of Casper and...
- IT WORKED FINE !!!
- As taught by you, I stopped machine A, removed HDD A and booted on HDD B :
the result is 100% OK, the clone works to my satisfaction
- I extracted HDD B and restored machine A to its original condition.
So, I have now this HDD B on the corner of my desk and machine B is waiting
to receive it.
Let me remind you of a few facts :
- machine B has a slightly different environment (same mobo as A, but
different version of Athlon XP, different DRAM)
- for machine B I have already acquired a supplementary XP Pro license, and
in the course of my previous "experiments" I managed to go far enough for
activating this product (which means that my machine B configuration had
generated an equipment ID which has enabled me to obtain from Microsoft a
Confirmation ID) ; I have kept on a USB key a copy of the last wpa.bak and
wpa.dbl files that could be obtained from machine B.

I don't think that I could add anything else that would be relevant.

Your guidance for transplanting HDD B into machine B will be highly
appreciated.

And again : best greetings.

Claude

 

[Timothy Daniels]

:
:
:
:
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.


How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?


- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":

http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD
contains the same version of Windows which is currently installed
on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*


The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
[.......]
[..........]

Tim,
[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into
machine A (as HDD1, whereas A's proper drive is registered
as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows
disk manager (incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been
careful to make it an active primary partition first time I organized
HDD B and it keeps this status although I have reformatted it)

You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?

- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking
to do a good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered
that it cannot identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4)
and this for the first time since I have had this software - put off, I
decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a
message "You must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk
for being able to use MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are
not recognized, which is not so much of a surprise considering that
MaxBlast is an Acronis product like TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put
in BIOS, with drive letters OK etc etc...

Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?

Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

Again, thank you for the time spent and the dedication !
This time, I post for telling you that I succeeded in reaching the end point
of your post of June 28 / 12:14am. So, all is well.
But for academic purposes and for passing experience to others, I can
explain a little bit as my previous descriptions have been too vague.
I started the cloning operation having in machine A :
- a HDD that I call "A", known of BIOS as HDD0, hooked to IDE 0
channel as a "master" ; it contains two partitions, one being C:\
(primary and active) carrying the system that I intend to clone into
machine B ("cloning" being this time used in the sense that you taught me)
- a HDD that I call "B", known of BIOS as HDD1, hooked to IDE 1
channel as a "slave" (master is CD drive on this channel) ; it carries 5
partitions (for "historic" reasons), one has been pre-formatted by me
as an active primary for receiving the clone ; actually I formatted it for
getting rid of the "image + restore" rubbish that I had put into it in my
previous experimentation ; the other 4 are all logical partitions, grouped
into an "extended" primary
- the boot sequence is as follows : CD drive, then HDD0, then HDD1.
Am I sufficiently explicit ?

It would be nice to know what the partition numbers are in order
to know what the correct entries in the boot.ini file should be, but
I think that it is safe to assume that the "C:" partition on HDD A
is partition 1, and the single Primary partition on HDD B is also
partition 1, and that the boot.ini file is correctly set up in partition
1
on HDD B.

Anyhow, the story is now as follows :
- TrueImage refused to recognize my hard drives (see earlier post)
- I tried MaxBlast and it told me that I did not have in my machine a single
Seagate/Maxtor HDD, which made me laugh as you can imagine...
- I asked for help from the Seagate/Maxtor people, they did not deliver in
time
- I downloaded the 30 day-trial version of Casper and...
- IT WORKED FINE !!!

The only restriction on the free 30-day trial version of Casper
is that it will not re-size the partition that it is transferring - the
clone's partition size will be the same as the size of the source
partition. In your case, this seems not to be a limitation.

- As taught by you, I stopped machine A, removed HDD A and
booted on HDD B : the result is 100% OK, the clone works
to my satisfaction
- I extracted HDD B and restored machine A to its original condition.

So, I have now this HDD B on the corner of my desk and machine B
is waiting to receive it.
Let me remind you of a few facts :
- machine B has a slightly different environment (same mobo as A,
but different version of Athlon XP, different DRAM)
- for machine B I have already acquired a supplementary XP Pro
license, and in the course of my previous "experiments" I managed
to go far enough for activating this product (which means that my
machine B configuration had generated an equipment ID which has
enabled me to obtain from Microsoft a Confirmation ID) ; I have
kept on a USB key a copy of the last wpa.bak and wpa.dbl files
that could be obtained from machine B.

I don't think that I could add anything else that would be relevant.

Your guidance for transplanting HDD B into machine B will be highly
appreciated.

And again : best greetings.

Claude

Good going, Claude, and now you have hit the limit of my
knowledge. I'll try re-posting your inquiry in this same NG
with this, the 2nd half of your question.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

:
:
:
:
:
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.


How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?


- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":

http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD
contains the same version of Windows which is currently installed
on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*


The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
[.......]
[..........]

Tim,
[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into
machine A (as HDD1, whereas A's proper drive is registered
as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows
disk manager (incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been
careful to make it an active primary partition first time I organized
HDD B and it keeps this status although I have reformatted it)


You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?


- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking
to do a good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered
that it cannot identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4)
and this for the first time since I have had this software - put off, I
decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a
message "You must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk
for being able to use MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are
not recognized, which is not so much of a surprise considering that
MaxBlast is an Acronis product like TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put
in BIOS, with drive letters OK etc etc...

Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?


Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

Again, thank you for the time spent and the dedication !
This time, I post for telling you that I succeeded in reaching the end point
of your post of June 28 / 12:14am. So, all is well.
But for academic purposes and for passing experience to others, I can
explain a little bit as my previous descriptions have been too vague.
I started the cloning operation having in machine A :
- a HDD that I call "A", known of BIOS as HDD0, hooked to IDE 0
channel as a "master" ; it contains two partitions, one being C:\
(primary and active) carrying the system that I intend to clone into
machine B ("cloning" being this time used in the sense that you taught me)
- a HDD that I call "B", known of BIOS as HDD1, hooked to IDE 1
channel as a "slave" (master is CD drive on this channel) ; it carries 5
partitions (for "historic" reasons), one has been pre-formatted by me
as an active primary for receiving the clone ; actually I formatted it for
getting rid of the "image + restore" rubbish that I had put into it in my
previous experimentation ; the other 4 are all logical partitions, grouped
into an "extended" primary
- the boot sequence is as follows : CD drive, then HDD0, then HDD1.
Am I sufficiently explicit ?

It would be nice to know what the partition numbers are in order
to know what the correct entries in the boot.ini file should be, but
I think that it is safe to assume that the "C:" partition on HDD A
is partition 1, and the single Primary partition on HDD B is also
partition 1, and that the boot.ini file is correctly set up in partition
1
on HDD B.

Anyhow, the story is now as follows :
- TrueImage refused to recognize my hard drives (see earlier post)
- I tried MaxBlast and it told me that I did not have in my machine a single
Seagate/Maxtor HDD, which made me laugh as you can imagine...
- I asked for help from the Seagate/Maxtor people, they did not deliver in
time
- I downloaded the 30 day-trial version of Casper and...
- IT WORKED FINE !!!

The only restriction on the free 30-day trial version of Casper
is that it will not re-size the partition that it is transferring - the
clone's partition size will be the same as the size of the source
partition. In your case, this seems not to be a limitation.

- As taught by you, I stopped machine A, removed HDD A and
booted on HDD B : the result is 100% OK, the clone works
to my satisfaction
- I extracted HDD B and restored machine A to its original condition.

So, I have now this HDD B on the corner of my desk and machine B
is waiting to receive it.
Let me remind you of a few facts :
- machine B has a slightly different environment (same mobo as A,
but different version of Athlon XP, different DRAM)
- for machine B I have already acquired a supplementary XP Pro
license, and in the course of my previous "experiments" I managed
to go far enough for activating this product (which means that my
machine B configuration had generated an equipment ID which has
enabled me to obtain from Microsoft a Confirmation ID) ; I have
kept on a USB key a copy of the last wpa.bak and wpa.dbl files
that could be obtained from machine B.

I don't think that I could add anything else that would be relevant.

Your guidance for transplanting HDD B into machine B will be highly
appreciated.

And again : best greetings.

Claude

Good going, Claude, and now you have hit the limit of my
knowledge. I'll try re-posting your inquiry in this same NG
with this, the 2nd half of your question.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

As sometimes happens (even with computers) things are much simpler than
thought initially !
I bravely plugged my HDD B into machine B and booted (as Administrator),
thinking that anyhow nothing wrong could happen to me since I know how to
populate system partition in HDD B.
Soon Windows stated that hardware modifications make it compulsory to
re-activate, and I had the Activation window in front of me (you have to be
patient, it is slow coming out). Activation window has a button called
"Change product key", and this is what I had to use in order to activate the
cloned OS under the license key of my Windows XP "B". Once done, I got a
new Equipment ID number, and the rest was business as usual with a call to MS
activation center for a confirmation ID etc.

No "repair installation" needed, and this is important !!!

In summary : I ACHIEVED WHAT I WANTED TO ACHIEVE, i.e. a second computer
with the same work environment as the first computer, and without the
harassment of having to recreate everything from scratch. Of course, I did
not cheat on MSI and this might differ from the perspective of some people...

Your help was insturmental in obtaining this result and I thank you very
much for it. Best greetings,

Claude

 

[Timothy Daniels]

:
:
:
:
:
:
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.


How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?


- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":

http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD
contains the same version of Windows which is currently installed
on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*


The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
[.......]
[..........]

Tim,
[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into
machine A (as HDD1, whereas A's proper drive is registered
as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows
disk manager (incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been
careful to make it an active primary partition first time I organized
HDD B and it keeps this status although I have reformatted it)


You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?


- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking
to do a good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered
that it cannot identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4)
and this for the first time since I have had this software - put off,
I
decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a
message "You must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk
for being able to use MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are
not recognized, which is not so much of a surprise considering that
MaxBlast is an Acronis product like TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put
in BIOS, with drive letters OK etc etc...

Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I
have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?


Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*


Tim,

Again, thank you for the time spent and the dedication !
This time, I post for telling you that I succeeded in reaching the end
point
of your post of June 28 / 12:14am. So, all is well.
But for academic purposes and for passing experience to others, I can
explain a little bit as my previous descriptions have been too vague.
I started the cloning operation having in machine A :
- a HDD that I call "A", known of BIOS as HDD0, hooked to IDE 0
channel as a "master" ; it contains two partitions, one being C:\
(primary and active) carrying the system that I intend to clone into
machine B ("cloning" being this time used in the sense that you taught
me)
- a HDD that I call "B", known of BIOS as HDD1, hooked to IDE 1
channel as a "slave" (master is CD drive on this channel) ; it carries 5
partitions (for "historic" reasons), one has been pre-formatted by me
as an active primary for receiving the clone ; actually I formatted it
for
getting rid of the "image + restore" rubbish that I had put into it in my
previous experimentation ; the other 4 are all logical partitions,
grouped
into an "extended" primary
- the boot sequence is as follows : CD drive, then HDD0, then HDD1.
Am I sufficiently explicit ?

It would be nice to know what the partition numbers are in order
to know what the correct entries in the boot.ini file should be, but
I think that it is safe to assume that the "C:" partition on HDD A
is partition 1, and the single Primary partition on HDD B is also
partition 1, and that the boot.ini file is correctly set up in
partition
1 on HDD B.

Anyhow, the story is now as follows :
- TrueImage refused to recognize my hard drives (see earlier post)
- I tried MaxBlast and it told me that I did not have in my machine a
single Seagate/Maxtor HDD, which made me laugh as you can imagine...
- I asked for help from the Seagate/Maxtor people, they did not deliver
in time
- I downloaded the 30 day-trial version of Casper and...
- IT WORKED FINE !!!

The only restriction on the free 30-day trial version of Casper
is that it will not re-size the partition that it is transferring -
the
clone's partition size will be the same as the size of the source
partition. In your case, this seems not to be a limitation.

- As taught by you, I stopped machine A, removed HDD A and
booted on HDD B : the result is 100% OK, the clone works
to my satisfaction
- I extracted HDD B and restored machine A to its original condition.

So, I have now this HDD B on the corner of my desk and machine B
is waiting to receive it.
Let me remind you of a few facts :
- machine B has a slightly different environment (same mobo as A,
but different version of Athlon XP, different DRAM)
- for machine B I have already acquired a supplementary XP Pro
license, and in the course of my previous "experiments" I managed
to go far enough for activating this product (which means that my
machine B configuration had generated an equipment ID which has
enabled me to obtain from Microsoft a Confirmation ID) ; I have
kept on a USB key a copy of the last wpa.bak and wpa.dbl files
that could be obtained from machine B.

I don't think that I could add anything else that would be relevant.

Your guidance for transplanting HDD B into machine B will be highly
appreciated.

And again : best greetings.

Claude

Good going, Claude, and now you have hit the limit of my
knowledge. I'll try re-posting your inquiry in this same NG
with this, the 2nd half of your question.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

As sometimes happens (even with computers) things are much simpler than
thought initially !
I bravely plugged my HDD B into machine B and booted (as Administrator),
thinking that anyhow nothing wrong could happen to me since I know how to
populate system partition in HDD B.
Soon Windows stated that hardware modifications make it compulsory to
re-activate, and I had the Activation window in front of me (you have to be
patient, it is slow coming out). Activation window has a button called
"Change product key", and this is what I had to use in order to activate the
cloned OS under the license key of my Windows XP "B". Once done, I
got a new Equipment ID number, and the rest was business as usual with a
call to MS activation center for a confirmation ID etc.

No "repair installation" needed, and this is important !!!

In summary : I ACHIEVED WHAT I WANTED TO ACHIEVE, i.e. a
second computer with the same work environment as the first computer,
and without the harassment of having to recreate everything from scratch.
Of course, I did not cheat on MSI and this might differ from the
perspective of some people...

Your help was insturmental in obtaining this result and I thank you very
much for it. Best greetings,

Claude

I'm glad it worked out well for you. It is interesting that you did not
have to do a Repair Install. (See the thread in this NG with the
subject line: "How to apply legal license to transferred clone?")
It is still a mystery to me when a Repair Install is necessary and
when it isn't.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

:
:
:
:
:
:
:
- transfered B HDD into B machine, which did not boot
at this stage, but was not a surprise to me given the
different hardware configuration.


How many partitions are there on HDD B?
Which partition has the boot files?
Which partition has the OS?
Which partition is marked "active"?
What are the contents of the boot.ini file on
the partition that is marked "active"?


- created a "slipstreamed" installation CD integrating
B Windows from MSI's original B CD and SP2
downloaded from MSI
- booted B machine from this slipstreamed installation CD,
went into "repair" mode, and encountered a huge number
of situations where "Setup cannot copy the file..." (always
for files contained in I386), which I deliberately "jumped"
(I have tried to copy the I386 folder into the B HDD and
have Windows setup point at it, to no avail)
- succeeded in introducing license key however, and was
able to activate this B Windows, working in Safe mode
and as Administrator
- setup being completed, many deficiencies are visible.

Read this site regarding a "repair installation":

http://web.mit.edu/ist/products/winxp/advanced/reinstall-repair-shallow.html
, especially this:
"Note that this procedure will only work if your Windows XP CD
contains the same version of Windows which is currently installed
on your hard drive."

*TimDaniels*


The amount of verifications to be performed is awesome
and it will take me some time to answer your questions
intelligently...
For the time being :
- I used the word "cloning" somewhat imprudently,
in a generic sense
- In fact, I have been imaging + restoring, not cloning
as you describe it.
[.......]
[..........]

Tim,
[......]
- removed HDD B from machine B, connected it into
machine A (as HDD1, whereas A's proper drive is registered
as HDD0) ; jumpers taken care of ;
- reformatted system partition of HDD B using Windows
disk manager (incidentally, it is partition F:\ and I had been
careful to make it an active primary partition first time I organized
HDD B and it keeps this status although I have reformatted it)


You don't say how many partitions there are on HDD B and how
it is jumpered and how HDD A is jumpered. For example, you
could have HDD A jumpered as Slave on IDE channel 1, and if
it is the only HDD in the system, it will control booting. But as
soon as you put another HDD in the system, no matter how it's
jumpered, the new HDD will control booting because it can only
take a position ahead of HDD B in the Hard Drive Boot Order.
So, you must supply these details:
1) How are both of the HDDs jumpered?
2) How many Primary partitions are there on HDD B?
3) Which partition is "active"?
4) Does the "active" Primary partition contain the boot files?
5) What are the contents of the boot.ini file?

You say you reformatted the system partition on HDD B.
In Microsoft's terminology, the "system partition" is the one
with the boot files (not necessarily the one with the OS).
Is this what you mean?

Why did you reformat that partition, since the cloning operation
will do that for you?


- jumped joyfully to True Image (yes, I had this one also) thinking
to do a good cloning job right away. Alas ! True Image answered
that it cannot identify any hard disk in my machine (code E000101F4)
and this for the first time since I have had this software - put off,
I
decided to follow your advice and loaded MaxBlast since both
HDD's are Maxtor made. It installed nicely and then gave me a
message "You must have at least one Maxtor or Seagate hard disk
for being able to use MaxBlast" ; I have 2... but obviously they are
not recognized, which is not so much of a surprise considering that
MaxBlast is an Acronis product like TrueImage.
- needless to say that both Windows disk manager and Partition Magic
recognize my HDD's with index numbers matching the ones I put
in BIOS, with drive letters OK etc etc...

Any understanding of this situation ? Any relation to the fact that I
have
now in my machine 2 active partitions, although they are not on an equal
footing as far as booting sequence is concerned ?


Disk Management will only allow one Primary partition on a
HDD to be marked "active", but if there are 4 HDDs, there can
be 4 "active" Primary partitions - one on each HDD - with no
problems. The "active" flag is only checked by the Master Boot
Record of the HDD that is given control by the BIOS, and the
BIOS only gives control to the MBR on the HDD that it finds at
the head of its Hard Drive Boot Order. When you say you put
index numbers in the BIOS, what were the values of these numbers
and what were they for?

*TimDaniels*


Tim,

Again, thank you for the time spent and the dedication !
This time, I post for telling you that I succeeded in reaching the end
point
of your post of June 28 / 12:14am. So, all is well.
But for academic purposes and for passing experience to others, I can
explain a little bit as my previous descriptions have been too vague.
I started the cloning operation having in machine A :
- a HDD that I call "A", known of BIOS as HDD0, hooked to IDE 0
channel as a "master" ; it contains two partitions, one being C:\
(primary and active) carrying the system that I intend to clone into
machine B ("cloning" being this time used in the sense that you taught
me)
- a HDD that I call "B", known of BIOS as HDD1, hooked to IDE 1
channel as a "slave" (master is CD drive on this channel) ; it carries 5
partitions (for "historic" reasons), one has been pre-formatted by me
as an active primary for receiving the clone ; actually I formatted it
for
getting rid of the "image + restore" rubbish that I had put into it in my
previous experimentation ; the other 4 are all logical partitions,
grouped
into an "extended" primary
- the boot sequence is as follows : CD drive, then HDD0, then HDD1.
Am I sufficiently explicit ?


It would be nice to know what the partition numbers are in order
to know what the correct entries in the boot.ini file should be, but
I think that it is safe to assume that the "C:" partition on HDD A
is partition 1, and the single Primary partition on HDD B is also
partition 1, and that the boot.ini file is correctly set up in
partition
1 on HDD B.


Anyhow, the story is now as follows :
- TrueImage refused to recognize my hard drives (see earlier post)
- I tried MaxBlast and it told me that I did not have in my machine a
single Seagate/Maxtor HDD, which made me laugh as you can imagine...
- I asked for help from the Seagate/Maxtor people, they did not deliver
in time
- I downloaded the 30 day-trial version of Casper and...
- IT WORKED FINE !!!


The only restriction on the free 30-day trial version of Casper
is that it will not re-size the partition that it is transferring -
the
clone's partition size will be the same as the size of the source
partition. In your case, this seems not to be a limitation.


- As taught by you, I stopped machine A, removed HDD A and
booted on HDD B : the result is 100% OK, the clone works
to my satisfaction
- I extracted HDD B and restored machine A to its original condition.

So, I have now this HDD B on the corner of my desk and machine B
is waiting to receive it.
Let me remind you of a few facts :
- machine B has a slightly different environment (same mobo as A,
but different version of Athlon XP, different DRAM)
- for machine B I have already acquired a supplementary XP Pro
license, and in the course of my previous "experiments" I managed
to go far enough for activating this product (which means that my
machine B configuration had generated an equipment ID which has
enabled me to obtain from Microsoft a Confirmation ID) ; I have
kept on a USB key a copy of the last wpa.bak and wpa.dbl files
that could be obtained from machine B.

I don't think that I could add anything else that would be relevant.

Your guidance for transplanting HDD B into machine B will be highly
appreciated.

And again : best greetings.

Claude


Good going, Claude, and now you have hit the limit of my
knowledge. I'll try re-posting your inquiry in this same NG
with this, the 2nd half of your question.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

As sometimes happens (even with computers) things are much simpler than
thought initially !
I bravely plugged my HDD B into machine B and booted (as Administrator),
thinking that anyhow nothing wrong could happen to me since I know how to
populate system partition in HDD B.
Soon Windows stated that hardware modifications make it compulsory to
re-activate, and I had the Activation window in front of me (you have to be
patient, it is slow coming out). Activation window has a button called
"Change product key", and this is what I had to use in order to activate the
cloned OS under the license key of my Windows XP "B". Once done, I
got a new Equipment ID number, and the rest was business as usual with a
call to MS activation center for a confirmation ID etc.

No "repair installation" needed, and this is important !!!

In summary : I ACHIEVED WHAT I WANTED TO ACHIEVE, i.e. a
second computer with the same work environment as the first computer,
and without the harassment of having to recreate everything from scratch.
Of course, I did not cheat on MSI and this might differ from the
perspective of some people...

Your help was insturmental in obtaining this result and I thank you very
much for it. Best greetings,

Claude

I'm glad it worked out well for you. It is interesting that you did not
have to do a Repair Install. (See the thread in this NG with the
subject line: "How to apply legal license to transferred clone?")
It is still a mystery to me when a Repair Install is necessary and
when it isn't.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,

I wish someone explains to us the logics in using or not using Repair
Install ! I read the other thread and am baffled...
Anyhow all is well that ends well, and all my best to you and those who
developed an interest for this subject.

Claude

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I wish someone explains to us the logics in using or not using
Repair Install ! I read the other thread and am baffled...
Anyhow all is well that ends well, and all my best to you and those
who developed an interest for this subject.

- Computer will not boot and you are not experienced with the recovery
console and.or other tools like BartPE
- You are moving the hard disk drive (or image of the OS on the drive) to a
new system and will be changing enough that the HAL will not be valid - a
repair install will pick up on the changes and fix the HAL.