[ale] OT: Copying a complete hard drive

[John Wells]

Guys,

Finally got this to work, although it wasn't very straightforward.

I imaged the disk using partimage (partimage.org) and Knoppix.  I then
booted the target laptop into knoppix, connected to the original machine,
and transferred it over.  I took approximately 2 hours to restore 15 GB.

However, Windows XP wouldn't boot.  The bootloader pulled up fine, but if
I tried to boot in anything but safe mode, I'd get a blank screen.  If I
*did* boot in safe mode, it would begin booting and list a number of
drivers out of the multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partion(1)\Windows\System
directory it was loading, and then it would just halt.

As a last resort, I popped in the XP cd.  Instead of dropping to the
recovery console, I pressed "Enter" to begin re-installing XP.  On the
next screen, you have the option of choosing to try and repair a current
installation.  I opted for that, and the system went through a (seemingly)
full install process, with "Time remaining" indicators and standard in
progress promotional material.

When it was finished, I reboot, and voila...my system was restored.  All
software from the original drive was in place and working.  All settings
restored, etc.

So, while it wasn't as easy as I had hoped, it still did work.  I'm not
exactly certain what caused the problem initially, but glad the end turned
out ok.

Thanks,
John