Image or clone from old to new laptop?

[jrjrg]

I know this has been asked thousands of times, but I'm still not exactly sure...

Here's my situation. I just purchased a new laptop running Vista. My old laptop which I'm planning to sell is also running Vista (so its actually not that old) and I want to copy everything (Vista settings, programs, documents) from the old to the new laptop. The old and new laptops are different brands with 160GB and 200BG HD respectively. I have a 500GB external drive which can be used as an image/clone media.

So which is more appropriate, image or clone?

[GroverH]

Copy your old document contents to the external and then drag them onto your new documents folder.

You will need to install all the programs onto the new laptop as a new install. You will not be able to use the old image.

Examine any preferrred settings and adjust the new accordingly. The old image cannot help you.

Since the hdwe between the two is different, you cannot normally restore.

If however, you want to use your old drive in the new laptop (as the system drive), then this would involve special procedures and you might be able to accomplish using "universal restore". You can search "universal restore" on the forum.