Am I being misled by my IT consultant????

My obnoxious IT Professional tells me that there is no possible way I can backup my IDE computer (TOSHIBA BRAND) and clone the computer entirely to my brand new SATA computer (ACER BRAND). I purchased Acronis True Image 9.0 and he says it isn't worth taking it out of the box. Worse, he says that cloning is ONLY for the purpose of returning the programs and data to the original machine from which they came. Moreover, he says that companies must always use the ORIGINAL program disks when a new computer is newly used since there can never be a transfer of programs to a new (windows) machine without the use of the original disks. IS he right or is he wasting my time AND MONEY Thanks - DrMark

 

DrMark,

I've taken the liberty to moving this to the Acronis TI forum.

He's partially right, partially wrong.

On cloning - since there can be OS components specific to the hardware used in the Toshiba, if you clone and then go, at best you will be faced with a piecemeal repatching of the OS, at worst you'll get a BSOD. In this scenario, the best course is to reinstall using the original program disks and then port over any prior work and configuration files. Also, in a commercial setting, very strict adherence to the program EULA's is really the best course of action. Cloning is best used to replicate a disk to be placed back in the original machine - say to replace an 80 GB drive with a 250 GB drive and keep everything basically as is (except partition size for example).

Is TI a waste of money? Of course not. This is a business PC, you really do need to have a very current and readily maintained recovery backup to minimize any downtime. TI will allow you to accomplish this very easily. I think it is well worth the cost.

Blue

 

Another option would be to try the TI Workstation version with the universal restore component which would in theory allow you to clone your existing system to your new and different hardware. Of course with all of the differences in hardware, it is best to test the TI boot cd to make sure your machines have proper hardware support. Since you already have the TI 9, I would go ahead and clone your new machine for a backup then try to restore the image made from your old one and see how it goes. Keep in mind as was already said that you will need to repair the drivers and such on the new pc which has different hardware if it works. Being a laptop, I would put odds that is will probably BSOD on you but it is worth a try as long as you have the new machines backup image ahead of time. Good luck to you.

 

He's right. In addition to the technical issues of taking a hard drive from one computer and putting it in another (which is in essence what you do by cloning), there is another legal consideration:

Most likely (probably) your license of Windows XP from Toshiba is ONLY valid on the PC that it was purchased on. This is a surprise to many people but the XP software is tied to the motherboard from the vendor in question. I know this is true with Dell PC's.

Contact Toshiba and I suspect you will find it is also illegal to transfer their XP to another PC. Some vendors have bios and motherboard code that prohibits it even.

 

Some Vendors do provide an actual XP CD in addition to the imaged one.

What happens in this circumstance or if you clone to another computer is your XP will require activating - From the legal side this might be OK so long as you don't still have the original copy of XP exsisting on the original computer.

However as you have purchased an Acer - Didn't that come with it's own copy of XP? If so what you can do then is clone the new computer - which will then fail to work as the software drivers etc are not correct - use the Acer XP to repair your 'new' install, and everything should be happy.

The only hitch here is if Acer didn't provide you with an actual CD of XP. Technically they are supposed to supply you with one under their OEM agreement, but MS doesn't make a fuss if they just supply a machine image as it makes it difficult to nick MS's OS!

Colin

 

Mnay if not most software program licenses allow one to use the software on one machine and yu can change which machine that is. OEM versions of Win usually have specially restricted licenses that limit use of the software to the original machine.

Your IT guy is not entirely worng but still somewhat misleading if he spoke as you said. ATI is not worthless but can be a lifesaver.

Going form one machine to another would require, at least a Win repair install, including appropoirate drivers installed at the F6 option to geta working verison of Win on a machine with hardware that requires diff drivers than the first machine.

 

General Rule Number 1. The hard way is often the easy way. The cleaner the install the better. You may get moved images to work but everytime you have a problem you will wonder if it is becasue of the shortcut you took.

General Rule Number 2. Things that work on desktops often fail on laptops.

 

Good advice, I agree it is always better to do a clean install on another system like that.

 

Dunno, DrMark says that the consultant is the obnoxious one, but DrMark sounds fairly obnoxious to me...

To how many patients does DrMark explain, in excruciating detail, since that is necessary to bring a layperson to a level of understanding of the workings of a particular procedure, about the arcane procedures HE engages in and upon?

Yet DrMark expects his IT consultant to reveal in all it's glorious detail and revelation, exactly why he has to do things in a certain way?

Nope, I see DrMark as the obnoxious one here.