[dba-Tech] Really and for true, how can I...

Steve Erbach erbachs at gmail.com
Wed May 28 05:03:24 CDT 2008


Jon,

Hmmm...you've pointed out the big issue that I was ignoring: drivers
to run the new system vs. drivers that ran the old system.  But your
suggestion makes sense.  How about this for a possible trial:

1) Image the old drive onto a backup with Casper
2) Boot with the backup on the old system
3) Remove all the pertinent drivers (LAN, video, optical, sound, yes?)
4) Shut down the old system and put the original drive back in place
as the boot drive
5) Remove the drives from the new system
6) Install the "crippled" cloned drive into the new system as the boot drive
7) Be ready with the XP CD and any new driver CDs and run a repair
install.  I don't think I've ever run one of those.

If it fails, well I gave it the old college try...but if it succeeds
then I've saved all the trouble of re-installing and upgrading all the
old software...which would have taken oodles more time.

I must ponder this.  Thanks, Jon.

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI
USA

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Jon Tydda <jon at tydda.plus.com> wrote:
> I'm not going to say never, because I don't believe in it, but it would be
> very hard, what with all the old hardware drivers and things that would need
> to be removed, and then installed for the new system. What OS is it running?
>
> If it's 2k or XP, you could always remove the old drivers etc, stick it in
> the new box and run a repair install, see if that would work. I won't
> guarantee a good result, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try :-)
>
>
> Jon
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Steve Erbach
> Sent: 27 May 2008 23:17
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Really and for true, how can I...
>
> ...take a perfectly good, bootable IDE hard disk from one PC that's seen
> better days and mount it in a new PC with a new hard disk, and make the old
> drive boot the new PC?  I mean, really.  Are we forever doomed to having to
> re-install every bleeping bit of software on a new PC?
>
> I ask because it can become very problematical to re-install some software
> if there never was a CD for it.  Besides the fact that it could take hours
> and hours to go through the routine and download all the farging upgrades to
> get everything on the new system to the point that it's as usable as the old
> PC.
>
> Any way at all?  I've seen our network admin do very interesting things with
> external SATA drives to switch which drive is the bootable one after making
> a clone copy with Future Systems' Casper.  But what about plain Jane IDE
> drives?
>
> Anybody?
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve Erbach



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