clone drive to put on other computer

[Michael T. Miesner]

Hello,
We have an old windows XP computer that unfortunately runs some expensive (paid for) software on it. The computer is old, and I wanted to buy a newer computer to replace it that would be relatively similar (just with 12 less years of wear and tear on the parts).
Went from an optiplex 210L to a HP Elite small form 8300 as the replacement cpu. Backed up both drives that came with both computers, but when I attempted to restore the 210L drive to the 8300 (to move the xp and hoped that everything would move over to the new computer with a bigger drive, I got a blues creen of death. COUldnt boot into safe mode at all.
Tried to restore the windows 10 fresh install on the 8300 that I backed up, and got a message that the backup was corrupt.

Looking for input, troubleshooting, advice, etc.

I used clonezilla probably a decade ago with success, so I feel fairly (?) confident this could/should have worked unless their hardware is just too different.

[Redo Rescue]

Hi Michael!

Thanks for using Redo. The process you attempted is unlikely to work, but not because of any limitations of Redo (or Clonezilla, or any other imaging software). It's more likely a matter of Windows not being able to boot from or have the drivers to support the new hardware. Since XP has already reached end-of-life, brand new hardware may not even provide drivers that are compatible with XP (released nearly two decades ago in 2001).

It is possible that the new hardware is compatible with XP, but even so, imaging an entirely different system is rarely going to boot without issue given the hardware differences. Even a simple change like upgrading from a spinning SATA drive to a new SSD can render a system unbootable. A determined technical user can often recover from these errors, but in some cases they aren't trivial.

Before attempting anything, it is advisable to make a backup of the system, especially given the importance of the software it contains. (It sounds as though you've already done this.) If the current XP hard drive were to fail, you should be able to restore the system to a new hard drive to resurrect it.

If you are 100% sure you have a successful backup (did you restore it to another drive and see it boot?), then you could try moving the drive over into the new system to see if everything works as expected. If the hard drive is completely different (e.g. was IDE, now SATA), other tricks may be required, but all of this is far beyond the scope of imaging software.

One option worth mentioning is that if you can somehow get XP with the software you need to run in a virtual machine, it would not matter if the host were running Windows 7, 8, or 10 (though we strongly recommend Linux). When running full screen, the experience is comparable to native performance on modern hardware, and the VM image can always be moved to a new system should the existing hardware fail.

Hope this helps!

[Michael T. Miesner]

Hi. Thanks for your reply.
I am working on this in my spare time while at work, and we are still using
the regular computer. Yesterday I installed win 10 on the newer computer (I
would prefer Linux, too, but there is other software that is advantageous
to have win 10 with and our users are NOT computer saavy at all). I also
tried to get a clonezilla backup yesterday just in case but it failed.
I'll try getting a virtual environment setup in the newer computer asap,
and follow a guide to restore the XP image to run virtually.

Michael

Michael T Miesner, Ph.D., LCP
Clinical Health Psychologist
Partner, Dominion Behavioral Healthcare of Chesterfield
michaeltmiesner.com

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020, 9:43 PM Redo Rescue redobackup@users.sourceforge.net
wrote:

Hi Michael!

Thanks for using Redo. The process you attempted is unlikely to work, but
not because of any limitations of Redo (or Clonezilla, or any other imaging
software). It's more likely a matter of Windows not being able to boot from
or have the drivers to support the new hardware. Since XP has already
reached end-of-life, brand new hardware may not even provide drivers that
are compatible with XP (released nearly two decades ago in 2001).

It is possible that the new hardware is compatible with XP, but even so,
imaging an entirely different system is rarely going to boot without issue
given the hardware differences. Even a simple change like upgrading from a
spinning SATA drive to a new SSD can render a system unbootable. A
determined technical user can often recover from these errors, but in some
cases they aren't trivial.

Before attempting anything, it is advisable to make a backup of the
system, especially given the importance of the software it contains. (It
sounds as though you've already done this.) If the current XP hard drive
were to fail, you should be able to restore the system to a new hard
drive to resurrect it.

If you are 100% sure you have a successful backup (did you restore it to
another drive and see it boot?), then you could try moving the drive
over into the new system to see if everything works as expected. If the
hard drive is completely different (e.g. was IDE, now SATA), other tricks
may be required, but all of this is far beyond the scope of imaging
software.

One option worth mentioning is that if you can somehow get XP with the
software you need to run in a virtual machine, it would not matter if the
host were running Windows 7, 8, or 10 (though we strongly recommend Linux).
When running full screen, the experience is comparable to native
performance on modern hardware, and the VM image can always be moved to a
new system should the existing hardware fail.

Hope this helps!

clone drive to put on other computer
https://sourceforge.net/p/redobackup/discussion/help/thread/e7a29a037e/?limit=25#f3db/7843

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[Michael T. Miesner]

Hi,
I am back-- and now have taken a few steps forward.
I ran redo rescue, and verified that the backup is indeed valid.
I installed VirtualBox on the win 10 computer, and now, when trying to boot into redo rescue in order to restore the image, I get the error:
This kernel requires X86-64 CPU, but only detected a i686 CPU. Unable to Boot, please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.

Do I need a different version of redo rescue or to make my virtual XP instace 64 bit?
LOL at 64 bit windows xp.

[Redo Rescue]

Hi Michael,

Great progress, but there are still dragons ahead, I'm afraid! So the Windows version on the drive expects the hardware to be 64-bit, but Virtualbox appears to be configured in such a way that your 64-bit processor is not visible to it. Virtualbox is certainly capable, but unfortunately we don't know specifics on how to configure it.

See if this link helps: https://www.techjunkie.com/setup-64-bit-guest-virtualbox/

It should be a matter of selecting the right guest type to get it to use 64-bit mode. Once that's done, it remains to be seen whether XP will boot successfully, and if it does, whether WinXP will complain incessantly about hardware changes, Windows activation, missing drivers, and so on. But with a little bit of extreme perseverence, a tall glass of scotch, and several hours vascillating between fits of rage and tearful bargaining with the Creator, it's possible that you just might make this work.

We believe in you! Keep us posted.

[Michael T. Miesner]

Hi All,
I am back and was able to change virtualization, as mentioned above, to 64 bit and that worked.
Booted up redorescue from iso just fine, and was able to restore the XP image (redo rescue states this was successful).

Now, booting into windows, I get a blank screen. If I boot into windows in safe mode, it appears to time out at this screen.

[Michael T. Miesner]

I posted too early. If I happen to try to boot in the normal mode, it hangs at that screen

[Redo Rescue]

The Internet is littered with posts like this, typically after a hardware change. It may come down to needing to find an XP installation CD-ROM (or ISO) and running the "Repair Windows" option on the disk to see if the system can be fixed.

Depending on the software you're trying to salvage, you may be able to copy the files manually and reinstall XP and copy them over... Is that an option worth considering? Some make significant changes to the registry, whereas others are fairly portable and are self-contained in their folders.

This can be a very difficult task indeed. As we pointed out before, there really is no drive imaging solution that can reliably overcome significant system changes.