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From: Mike Easter on 18 Jun 2010 05:13
Susan Miller wrote:

> I don't want to reinstall. (It's all legal - I'm not a pirate - it
> just took a month of days off to get it all installed).

If you are not a pirate, you need to have a/one licensed copy of any MS
OS you want to install on any/one computer.

If you like to hop around from one hardware to another and you only have
one Win7 licensed for whatever is the HTPC^1, then maybe you should
either consider some other free OS like linux distros, or get some more
MS licenses.

You can make a live linux CD and boot it up on the Asus LT or the
Gateway LT and see how well the hardware is recognized. If you
(already) have a Win restore of some kind which came with each of the
LTs, then you can restore that.

Your idea of cloning the media center Win7 and booting it on either LT
as a method of achieving a good Win7 LT install is daft.


^1 HTPC is a generic term meaning Home Theater PC or Media Center - it
doesn't imply any specific OS or hardware according to my understanding
which is elaborated here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_theater_PC



--
Mike Easter
From: Paul on 18 Jun 2010 05:43
Susan Miller wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> I have a Gigabyte motherboard media center HTPC running windows 7. I
> cloned the hard drive onto a laptop drive and plugged it into my Asus
> laptop. It worked (Windows booted) and I was able to update to the
> correct drivers.
>
> However, the Asus laptop had other hardware problems and I bought a
> replacement Gateway laptop. I took a new HTPC image and cloned it
> again onto a fresh hard drive.
>
> When I plug the cloned drive into the Gateway laptop and turn it on, I
> get the windows logo and then it blue screens. I tried a clone on
> another hard drive just in case the new drive was bad.
>
> I know this is "bad to do" in a general sort of way. It can cause
> strange behavior and driver conflicts and the like. However, I had a
> great run with the old clone, and I have about a huge amount software
> I don't want to reinstall. (It's all legal - I'm not a pirate - it
> just took a month of days off to get it all installed).
>
> Back when I was still running Windows 2000 and then Windows XP, I
> could take a drive and pop it into a new system, and do a repair
> install. It would update drivers and the like but keep my installed
> programs. This option has disappeared from Windows 7.
>
> I have a few questions...
>
> 1) Any idea why the clone worked going from a Gigabyte motherboard to
> an Asus motherboard? The laptop was about 3 years old, and the HTPC
> motherboard is about 6 months old.
>
> 2) I'd rather not have to give up another month getting the gateway in
> shape. Is there any reasonable (or even dubious) way of getting an
> existing image onto this new system. I can do a bare windows 7 install
> on the hard drive in case that would help.
>
> Sue

You'd start by writing down all the numbers from the blue screen
error, as a means of identifying the reason for the crash.
For example, it could be a 0x0000007B: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

This would be just one possible reason. It could be driver related,
like no driver to be able to read the disk. The OS has some
"built-in" drivers, and occasionally those are what make
cloning work. For example, when I move from one Intel Southbridge
motherboard to another, the standard interfaces modes sometimes
make cloning work.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=922976

There is another way to make it possible to move a clone between
two desktops, but the method wouldn't be a candidate for
a desktop to a laptop. I use a PCI storage controller card,
and move it into the new computer, as a means of guaranteeing
the same hardware is present so the disk can be read. I did that
when changing motherboards on my current computer. I used a
Promise Ultra133 card, and moved it and the boot disk to the
new motherboard. (I clone there, as a way to do a backup before
making the transition.) It booted up just fine, with a ton of
New Hardware Wizard windows. The really neat thing, is
I didn't get severely flagged on activation. Online
activation worked (WinXP). I'd read that what I was doing
would require a phone call, but it wasn't needed.

On the older OSes, a Repair Install could be used to fix it.
That doesn't change the installed programs (so no "month" to install
them again). But it will mean doing all the Windows Update stuff
over again, and there can be complications if you have IE8 installed
or WMP?? installed. You're supposed to remove IE8 before doing
the Repair Install, or something like that. So nominally, that
is a solution as well. Only time will tell, how well that works out.
Since it's a clone, it doesn't really matter if it fouls up - you can
clone again. It won't take long to find out (probably an hour
watching the wheels turn).

A common ref. for Repair Install - I don't like the colored text.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

A simplified version.

http://helpdesk.its.uiowa.edu/windows/instructions/repairinstall.htm

Paul
From: John Doe on 18 Jun 2010 14:18
Susan Miller <2.sue.miller gmail.com> wrote:

> When I plug the cloned drive into the Gateway laptop and turn it
> on, I get the windows logo and then it blue screens. I tried a
> clone on another hard drive just in case the new drive was bad.

Try booting into safe mode.
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