Will Imaged Drive Fuction On Laptop?

[Farrar]

I plan to connect a Maxtor External drive to my desktop, a Dell Dimension 8400, and use Acronis True Image Backup 9.0 to protect my drive and data.

I am receiving a new Dell laptop today and would like to:

1.) Test the restore process by placing the image on the laptop's drive and

2.) Use the same apps and possibly this very same image on the laptop.

My question is will there be a major conflict with hardware and drivers? Will the image on the laptop from my desktop not be unfunctional as the drivers will be wrong? I really want to test the restore function of this software somehow as I just recovered from a system failure and lost a great deal of data because the restore did not work correctly.

How will this affect the Windows XP Home License agreement? I am sure I am violating that by installing it on the laptop AND running it on my desktop even though I would "technically" already given Mr. Gates his share as I bought the OS that comes with the laptop, Windows XP Home.

Would it be best to just move the major data files to my laptop and use the OS that came with it?


Thanks Guys,

Jeff Farrar

[CeeBee]

99% won't work. The hardware platform is too different.

[Farrar]

That's what I thought. I'll just copy the "My Docs" folder over and load the apps I'll need.

I can I test the image restore? I hate to make an image of my Dell 8400 now and then format it to reinstall the backedup image to ensure it works. Although, that would be better than finding out down the road, I guess.

Thanks,

Jeff Farrar

[John_K]

I have done this kind of thing before. If moving the data files doesn't work and the image doesn't boot you can always do a repair install over the image which will make your OS legal as long as you use the dell laptop install disk(and product key if it asks for one). From that point its just a matter of installing drivers.

[Farrar]

Thanks...

So I should try to install the image first to ensure my software has copied my data AND restored it correctly {to the laptop} and then I can run the Repair option when booting from the OS disk that will come with the laptop.

Thanks,

Jeff

[John_K]

Very Welcome..

Yes, you need to transfer the image to the laptop drive first and just see if it boots. Ideally if it boots you could just install the laptop drivers and go on. But as CeeBee said its very different hardware and I can almost guarantee that it will at least want to be reactivated. A fresh install is always best but in this case thats not an option. So if I had to choose I would prefer the repair install. But if it works without it thats entirely up to you.