If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Faust, May 10, 2009.

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  1. Faust

    Faust Registered Member

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    As title says if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it - for history see this
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=241763

    Well to cut a long story short my work colleague has purchased his new PC so I went over to his place to lend a hand. He had already made a full image of his old PC (4 year old Laptop running Vista) and installed Acronis 2009 on his new HP Desktop PC by the time I had arrived. I brought with me my WinPE disk, fired it up, pointed Acronis to the disk image of his old PC on the external drive, clicked proceed to install onto his new HP and sat back with fingers crossed for the next 50 mins.

    You could have blown me down with a feather when "restore successfully completed" appeared on screen and I was almost speechless when his PC rebooted and up popped his old Desktop. Apart from a couple of drivers which Vista soon found and installed and a request to re-validate Office 2007 with MS everything worked just fine, every single programme has opened without error. How the hell can that be on totally different hardware? Granted the OS is the same but nothing else is. If this works on other machines then it makes buying a new PC a breeze. o_O
     
  2. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    By any chance are the two video cards running the same chipset?
     
  3. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    If there were signs of the OS detecting new hardware and installing new drivers, that would be completely as expected. Maybe the hardware is not as different as you expected or maybe there were more than a couple of drivers replaced.

    In any event, another system could have presented more of a problem and I would have stuck with the recommendation (DwnNdrty's?) in the other thread to revert to a standard VGA driver first before the transfer.
     
  4. cdldt

    cdldt Registered Member

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    My previous XP installation moved between 3 very-different computers, and apart from the need to reactivate there were no issues. The system was completely stable after every move.
     
  5. Faust

    Faust Registered Member

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    Completely different hardware - ones an old Lappy with ATi and the new HP is Nvidia plus four years apart, different HD types everything - the only common factor was Vista. There may have been other drivers installed but were only prompted to find two - on was for the audio media controller and the other was the driver for the HP monitor.

    I would have expected all sorts of errors but just shows how wrong one can be! I will certainly buy my next PC with added confidence as it took me days to reinstall all my programmes and settings last time I replaced mine.
     
  6. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    Actually I don't see why the True Image software cannot be configured so that in the Recovery feature, the video adapter in the backup can be ignored or can default to Standard VGA, if the process encounters a different one. Then in the first boot-up, the OS, if it has the driver in it, will install the correct video driver.
     
  7. Faust

    Faust Registered Member

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    Unlike many others I have been an admirer of ATI 2009 since its release as it was the first ATI product that worked flawlessly on all three of my computers which were all of varying ages and specifications. Following the almost flawless restoration of a full disk image from one PC to a completely new one has further enhanced my respect for this particular backup software product - well done Acronis.
     
  8. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    You know it's not supposed to work that way - on different hardware, that is. So it must be defective .... I would ask for a refund. :D :D
     
  9. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Well, there has to be someone who misses out on the challenges and learnings of restoring to different hardware and failure to boot. I'm sure you are unhappy about not getting that education. :)

    Just one thing, I hope you make a True Image backup of the new system before attempting the restore just in case it doesn't work. It's usually a lot easier to restore a TI backup than to do the OEM restore if there's a problem.
     
  10. Faust

    Faust Registered Member

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    First thing I advised my work colleague to do - well second actually, I said to him with luck like he's just had he should go out straightaway and buy a Lottery ticket as he must be on a roll :D

    If that had been me I would still be trying to reboot - unsuccessfully :argh:
     
  11. jehosophat

    jehosophat Registered Member

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    Well that is great news. It gives me hope for when my mother board eventually dies.

    I would like to see Acronis add Universal restore to ATI 2009. This for me would really enhance the product.
     
  12. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Better yet, you should have asked him to buy a lottery ticket for you and one for me. :D
     
  13. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    As I understand it the old Vista installation has been restored to the new computer by means of an image restoration.
    The Vista product keys on both computers should then be the same.
    These can be found by running Belarc Advisor http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html on the old and new computers to disclose the Vista product keys for both installations .
    If the keys are different some other Alchemy has come into play.

    Xpilot
     
  14. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Now, that's a very interesting point. If this isn't a corporate version of Vista, it should have wanted a reactivation on the new system.

    If it has been more than 6 months since the old system was activated, I wouldn't be surprised if the new activation worked. The test will be with Windows Update and True Avantage eventually.

    Hey Faust, what was the activation situation?
     
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