Move Installation: Transfer The Drive With The Vista Install To The New Computer ?
May 22, 2009
My computer just died, with a complex Vista installation on a 250 GB drive. I have a replacement unit on its way, but is there any way to transfer the drive with the Vista install to the new computer and get a working system? My Vista is a full retail copy. I'm now working on XP from my backup machine, an old Dell Optiplex GX200, with a 733 MHZ P3 that's not capable of running Vista. I could reinstall Vista, but would lose an awful lot of data and installed programs.
I'm running Vista Ultimate on my present computer, have full installation dvd. I'm buying a new Dell computer that comes with Vista Basic installed. Can I move Vista Basic from the Dell computer to my old computer and install my Ultimate on the Dell?
Right now I have a single 640 gig HDD that everything's on. I've got a laptop too that I'm gonna be taking out on rotations eventually. I wanted to get a new smaller (250GB) HDD and put my Vista on that, so my 640 will be data only (then I could take it with me in an external enclosure and leave the desktop for my mom to use til I come back and collect it). I was gonna DBAN the 640, but I wanted to get the data off of it first- about 170 GB of stuff that I'd rather not lose.
My question is-
Can I install Vista on the smaller drive, boot with that, and access files on the other drive? Would it work if there's another Vista running on the other drive? (both SATA).
If I have a hard drive in my PC, and have partitioned it and then I want to move this hard drive on to a new computer, will the partitions stay or will I need to re-partition the hard drive in the new PC?
I went to Fry's to have my computer (HP Windows XP) looked at because it wouldn't turn on. I was told that my mother board was fried. So, I bought a new computer (HP pavillion with vista) and a hard drive enclosure and the guys at Fry's put my hard drive in it and told me that I would just need to hook it up, turn it on and drag and drop my files. I've tried that but it's not working.
Back in the 60s the saying about Ma Bell was "We don't care - we don't have to." The feedback on these threads makes me think that it's time to resurrect that saying. Microsoft is not the 2nd party - Norton and McAfee are the 2nd parties - we buy their software. Microsoft is the 3rd party that installs their oh-so software on our computers and then expects us to uninstall or disable the functions of the 2d party software in order for their 3rd party software to work. Truly Ma Bell thinking on Microsoft's part.
So I give up - I'll not be using Windows Mail. The question now is whether I continue to have two computers running - my old laptop that has Outlook Express that has NEVER been a problem. Or can I move Outlook Express over to the new Vista computer? (The problem I'm dealing with is not a new one, rather it's one that has been kicking around here on the various discussion sites since last spring - that is that the antivirus programs seem to render WM useless, i.e., no mail in or out and no access to the messages in the folders with some lame excuse about the lack of memory etc. Yet here we are into Feb 2008 and Windows Mail and it's advisors are still saying dump the 2nd party software.)
I am having problems trying to figure how to get vista on a 400g SATA drive. I have tried with both 32 and 64. When I boot from the disk and do a custom install.. the drive just is not there. So I gave up on that and plugged in a smaller IDE drive and of course Vista installs no problem and guess what.. I can now use my Large Sata. Problem is that Vista runs extremly slow on the IDE. how I can move Vista to the SATA drive or at least do a fresh install to it, then I could transfer my settings.
I recently built a new computer and I would like to move my current install of Vista to the new system without reinstalling it. My only problem is that both setups will be using a raid 0 array for the installation and I don't know if I will be able to boot off the old disks with the new hardware. My old PC was a nForce 4 based AMD rig and my new one is a P35 based Intel rig. Is there a way that I can install the drivers for the new raid array prior to booting with it?
I just bought a DV4t laptop from HP. Due to the hard drive heating up problems with this particular laptop, I went out and bought a 60GB SSD which runs a lot cooler. Is there a way to move the Vista x64 Home Premium to the new SSD drive? I thought about reinstalling the OS from scratch, but the HP system does not come with a Windows disk, just a recover disk that will fill up most of the SSD space with bloatware.
I am at the point where my XP Pro install is probably due a good blowing away and re-installing. I am aware that just upgrading XP Pro to Vista will be very time consuming (took well over 3 hours when I went from my original XP pro to the first release about a year ago and lots of stuff was messed up and I ended up reformatting and starting again with a clean install). This is my conceptual plan:
* This time I want to back up my settings with the "file & settings transfer wizard" on the XP box to one of my server shares.
* Back up all my important document stuff to the server.
* Then I will format everything on my PC and clean install Vista Ultimate.
* Finally restore my settings back from the server using the Vista FSTW
Presumably the Vista FSTW equivalent can read the XP versions files, or should I expect troubles trying to do this?
Using VISTA Ultimate on an IBM T60p laptop. I am going to upgrade the hard drive from 100 to 320 GB. I have a 300GB SimpleTech external drive. I want to copy (image) the current hard drive to the SimpleTech, replace the hard drive and copy the image of from the SimpleTech back to the new drive.
1. Can this be done? 2. What software should one use? 3. Where would one find the steps necessary to do the imaging portion. (I can handle the hardware.)
------ Unrelated - why can't I make a post on the Microsoft website to this Newsgroup? Everytime I click New and choose Question I get a hand with a explosion symbol and nothing else?
As SP1 looms, it's probably time to go back to Vista after I tried it when on the Beta and RC releases and had a few problems with compatibility with other bits of kit. I am at the point where my XP Pro install is probably due a good blowing away and re-installing. I am aware that just upgrading XP Pro to Vista will be very time consuming (took well over 3 hours when I went from my original XP pro to the first release about a year ago and lots of stuff was messed up and I ended up reformatting and starting again with a clean install). This is my conceptual plan:
* This time I want to back up my settings with the "file & settings transfer wizard" on the XP box to one of my server shares.
* Back up all my important document stuff to the server.
* Then I will format everything on my PC and clean install Vista Ultimate.
* Finally restore my settings back from the server using the Vista FSTW
Presumably the Vista FSTW equivalent can read the XP versions files, or should I expect troubles trying to do this?
I have hard drives from both Win 98 SE and XP machines. I currently use a system with Vista 32. Is it possible to hook up these drives to my Vista machine and transfer the data to the Vista drive?
I have tried to transfer from 32 bit vista business to 64 bit home premium with belkin F5U258 cable but just starts the transfer then stops and will not move forward. After researching the Belkin site it states that this cable does not support 64 bit version. how to easly transfer files from old laptop to new laptop?
Microsoft has made a great impression on an Apple Mac user. So much so that I will be installing Vista on his Mac this afternoon. I am so excited by this that I can barely contain myself. Convert them one Vista installation at a time!
I am trying to import an OE6 Identity from a second hard drive that had been previously used as the boot drive for my computer, on which I was running XP and using Outlook Express 6 (OE6). I rebuilt the computer with a fresh installation of Windows Vista on a brand new hard drive. Now I am trying to set up Windows Mail and tried "File | Import | Messages | Outlook Express 6" to transfer the old files over, but on the "Specify Location" window the "Import mail from an OE6 Identity" option was greyed out and not given as an option. So it won't let me point to the old hard drive Itentities folder to import the old folders and message files.
I couldn't load Vista as an upgrade to XP because I was going from 32 bit to a 64 bit sytem. So during the installation, Vista didn't recognize I had a previous load. I think Vista is too smart thinking I don't need the option so it isn't offering it.
I have installed Vista x32 with SP2 Ultimate. When I installed anti-virus, BSOD came. Same AV version haven't problem with Vista SP1, what is updated to SP2. Then I try to install Vista with SP2 to hyper-v server, but installation stops immediately error screen (STOP: 0x0..8E). Is n_windows_vista_ultimate_sp2_checked_build_x86_dvd_342432.iso packet ok ?
I had to reinstall Vista due to malware that I could not get off my computer. I could not do a repair, and now Vista is new on my system. The problem is that I now cannot activate it, and I get a notice that says that I need to enter a new number. I do not think that I need to, but I don't know how to reactivate. I called Microsoft, but the person (honestly) hung up on me.
I,m ready to jump into vista. But I have a couple of questions that I need to be sure before I take the leap. I have WINXP pro on my local C: drive and I was wondering is Vista will let me dual boot if i need to go back to XP. Also I have another drive on my pc with 156 gig of space, in this drive i have many files that I need. Can I install vista on this secondary drive? will the installation erase all my data on this partition?. Awesome place to get info. Keep it up and Ill wait for your comments.
I have a new computer with an OEM version of Vista Home Basic. I have an old computer with an up to date retail version of XP including the registration/sn number. I DO NOT have the original XP disk. How do I transfer XP via CD/DVD to a second partition on my new computer?
I use Windows Live Mail. How do I move my mail and folders from my old computer to my new computer? I thought it would be as simple as signing in on my new computer, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I have -Dell XPS 730x with 6 GIG DDR3 RAM, Intel i7 64 bit Processor, 500 GIG disk,
I am running -Windows Vista Home Premium 64 which was preinstalled on the cpu
I want to -Dual boot between Vista64 and Windows XP32
So far -I have done everything to this machine from creating a virtual window in Vista64, to going into the command prompt from vista boot disk and running diskpart to clear hard drive.
I currently have -Two partitions on one disk. Primary 200GIG and Healthy 265GIG -Windows Vista Home Premium64 installed and running
The problems im having -every time try to boot from CD and run the windows xp setup, it is UNABLE to find ANY HARD DRIVES!
I have researched that - I must have the disk partitioned - Windows XP must be installed first - I have to play with the boot.ini - If i install vista32 it will be more successful
The errors I have gotten -STOP: 0x0000008E - i researched this and it said one option is to take out the excess RAM
I will be happy if - By the end of this weekend I can successfully run XP or both OS's in dual boot.
I need to go through all this trouble because - Digidesign has not written software for 64 bit proccessing yet. I need to make music.
My previous setup was XP on drive C and Vista on drive D. Drive C has failed and been replaced, XP loaded. Vista is no longer available. Drive D files are intact but I do not know how to load Vista on that drive without wiping out the existing files.
Does anyone know if Microsoft allows you to transfer the licence key (for say Vista) to another computer if the the first computer becomes irreparably damaged?
Does Vista have a method of verifying activation status when activation has been transfered to another computer? I recently built a new system and activated my Retail Vista License on that machine. Interestingly, the "old" machine no longer will finish booting it "hangs" shortly after starting and a network connection never occurs. Is there some "deactivation" scheme to prevent a user from running more than one copy of the program?
