Ghosting Prior XP Install over to Partition on New Build? (Repair, Ghost, SysPrep!)

[cide_]

Good morning, fellow masters at Hard Forum.


I just built a new rig, as you can see below in my Sig, That is what I'm running.

The prior machine I had is still kicking around... After 2 years of the same XP Install (And it still working fast/well) I have endless amounts of customization and tweaking, And more importantly all my recording stuff (VST's, Mixing software, etc) all setup in a certain way that would take months to replicate.

The drive this is all sitting on is a Western Digital RaptorX 150gb, the new drive I have I am running Vista64 bit on /w a 65gb partition at the beginning of the drive. (To try, and to take advantage of my Quad Xeon... And pre-alpha test Minefield, etc etc.)....

I already tried ghosting the 150GB Raptor/XP Setup to Partition D 150GB on the 300gb Raptor Drive to no avail....

What happened was it overtook my Vista boot info, and tried to boot XP. Without much luck, I tried to run a XP repair install off a sp3-integrated disk --- It didn't find any XP Install information (Thus... No repair install.)...


I was thinking of Running Sysprep on the Old machine (there is a new SysPrep for SP3) but I'm not positive if it will be enough to carry it over to this new rig as the former machine was an ATI Chipset based Dual Core Opteron with an entirely different sata controller......


I know if You install XP or have it sitting on a drive prior to installing vista --- vista will find XP and set it up into its boot loader by default... This is not the case, and I do not feel like reinstalling vista because I have it setup perfectly the way I want it.... Is there any 3rd party tools that would make this job easier for me, I've tried searching around with not much luck, apparently its a "tricky" thing to do if you want to get XP recognized after a vista install..


I don't really care about recognized on the same partition, I just want it working.

Would it be best to run XP on an entirely separate drive, Switching boot device in the BIOS?

Best to run Sysprep sp3??

Or use some 3rd party tool to get Vista recognizing there is a XP install sitting on the same hard drive in another partition?


I need some advice and help on this, Please!

I know someone here will help.
And you will be greatly thanked!

 

[Gorankar]

Sys prep and ghosting it over should allow you to do this, though you will have to manually edit your boot config in msconfig to show both OS's.

To avoid that, sysprep and ghost Xp over first to C: and then install Vista to D:. That should get you past having to edit your boot config. Also that will allow you to avoid any issues your Xp install and your installed programs might have with a root drive letter change fromC:. Xp can usually handle that fine if properly prepped, but many 3rd part apps do not like it at all.

Alternatively, you can sysprep the drive you already have Xp installed on, and put it in the new system. You would have to edit your boot config again, (unless you installed Vista second), or you could use the functions built into your mobo to select which drive to boot. On my pc I think it is f2 or f4 during post, on yours it may be something else but the post screen prolly tells which button to push.

I, personally would not try these methods. I would use a clean install of both and then spend the time fixing the system up to my tastes. But they should at least get you started in the right direction.

I would say to make backups first but it seems you already have ghost images of everything important to you.

 

[Rampage1329]

Sysprep and ghost is for creating images of machines with the same hardware. So unless you edit the sysprep.ini to point to other drivers I'm afraid you are just giong to be ghosting a worthless xp install.

 

[cide_]

I've clean installed Vista, First, My bad. Shoulda waited

I agree with clean install of XP, It's just that I have so much stuff installed on it, Alot of which is a pain to install again (Files spread out everywhere, Lost key codes, etc.) I rather avoid it till I have the motivation and organization to do it. Mainly my XP is just for recording sake, So yeah.

I am pretty sure Sysprep erases core components driver , and schedules them to be reloaded? If that is not the case then there is no sense even bothering with Sysprep.


I was thinking about the drive letter thing too, I dont intend on Changing XP drive lettering, so if anything I will Reinstall Vista after ghosting XP to C Drive; Vista to D sorta deal.

I think a repair install of XP will bring my old installation back to life on the new machine, Its just a matter of what is the best way to go about this. I think I'll Image it to a backup, and then attempt to screw with the original drive until I have a working bootable XP and then play with cloning

If you have any other suggestions, I encourage them

Thanks alot guys