is there a no-nonsense step-by-step?

So far I've been having problems and I'm about to try it again tomorrow (Thursday) so I thought I'd post here to confirm a few things (you can tell I expect more problems)

All I need to do is to clone a dying hard drive that contains Win2000-Pro over to another computer. I don't want to change drives or open the box if I can avoid it. I've bought an external USB drive large enough to hold the contents of the failing drive.

I assume this is possible right? I end up with a clone of the failing drive (minus the "failing part") on another machine with the software that is installed, still installed and ready to be used on the second machine. Obviously I expect everything on the second machine's drive to disappear as the replacement image is laid over it.

I made bootable floppies but it takes a long time to start up the machine with 7 floppy disks. That would be okay but the system is rebooting whenever I touch the mouse (it's a USB mouse) that is annoying but I'm not trying to "fix the mouse" (unless it's easy) I just need the clone made so we can throw the computer away.

I've read the FAQ, the docs and everything I can see and there is no mention of a setting I was told about by somebody in support. acpi=off noapic

I don't know what it means (cause I can't find any docs on it) but I added it to the bootwiz.cfg file on floppy #1. It didn't help. I'm only mentioning this so if the suggestion is "add acpi... to disk #1" we can skip that (unless you see something wrong with the string I used.

About the bootable CD option I've seen mentioned. This computer has a CD-ROM but I can't write using it. I have CD burners available but on other machines. Can I make such a bootable CD on one of the other machines and use it to boot the failing one? That would be great (I think) since I wouldn't have to slip seven diskettes in over and over.

I just really need this one thing to work. Whether the software can do other cool things or not isn't important tomorrow. So, if somebody can answer my questions or even just offer support in the form of "piece of cake you'll have it done tomorrow" that would be great.

Thanks,
Tom

 

Hello Tom

If the machine you're migrating to is a standalone desktop then you'll probably get away without doing a Windows "Sysprep" first. However, unless both machines have identical hardware, you'll need to carry out a Windows "Repair Install" as per this <post> by TheQuest (for XP read W2K Pro).

A bootable rescue CD isn't machine specific. Therefore, temporarily install TI on one of the other machines and create a rescue CD. Assuming that the "old" machine's drives were detected after booting from your rescue floppies then the new rescue CD should work just fine.

Regards