Will it boot with another motherboard?

FZR600R · 04 Jan 2013

Hello

I am looking at using either the W7 built in or buying Acronis True Image. Suppse I clone my entire Hard Drive to an external USB Drive. Will the image boot even if I have changed motherboard or other hardware? I was under the impression that it will boot but with a lot of errors since the correct drivers for the chipset etc. aren't present so I can install the new ones later.

Acronis website claims that in order to do this I must buy their plus package add-on to the main program.

Also my Drive is C: and D: with W7 and all programs on C: Acronis claims that it clones the entire drive but it doesn't reserve space so the image will not be bigger than the actual data present so a 500 Gb C: partition (with 80 Gb taken) and a 500 Gb with (10 Gb taken) will only be a 90 Gb image. Is this true for the built in Windows image program as well? Maybe stupid questions but I am new to this.

I am not interested in on the fly backup of certain folders and other extras as Acronis claims to be capable of, only a complete image in the case of a catastrophical failure.

Kaktussoft · 04 Jan 2013

You want to make a complete backup of all partitions. And use it in case of severe errors? Macrium reflect free is the way to go. Very flexible and free.

Imaging with free Macrium download th winpe ISO there and burn it. Boot from it and check if it sees the internal disk and external disk where you put backups on. Connect external disk to usb2 instead of usb3 when restoring using rescue cd (some usb3 ports are not supported).

The software can be found here Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download
You can even mount the image as virtual drive and restore some files How to browse an Image or 'File and Folder' Backup in Windows Explorer

software is very user friendly!

Kaktussoft · 04 Jan 2013

windows built in image backup only copies used space, so a 80GB disk with 10GB data will be approximately 10GB. One big disadvantage of windows built in image backup is:

It assumes destinaton disk (in case of restore) has EXACT same partition layout, so must be same disk as was when it backupped. If not... whole disk will be cleaned and partitions will be created the way it was.
As a result of previous item.... restore to smaller disk is impossible. Only possible if there was "unallocated space" at end of original disk.

Use macrium reflect instead!

Kaktussoft · 04 Jan 2013

Problems that can occur after succesfull restore on another system/motherboard

A lot of errors but system boots. Goto "device manager" , remove old stuff and install new drivers.
System crashes on old video driver. You have a new video card but still another driver. Boot in safe mode (so it uses standard VGA driver), uninstall the driver. Afterwards install correct driver

So no real problems at all normally. Only real problem is the disk driver or better said the SATA or IDE driver. Go to device manager now expand branch IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Post screenshot

Kaktussoft · 04 Jan 2013

You can inject new storage drivers to prevnet 7B stopcode.
How to Switch Mobos w/o reinstalling Win 7 - Using DISM - Processors, Motherboards and Memory - OverclockersClub Forums

Easier is to boot into windows recovery environment->command prompt and do:

Code:

DISM  /image:F:  /Add-Driver  /driver:G:\driver\nvstor64.inf

Replace G:\driver\nvstor64.inf with real driver location.
Replace F: with drive letter of old win7 partition. It is not always C in recovery environment! So do
DIR C:
DIR D:
DIR E:

first

FZR600R · 05 Jan 2013

Thanks, today I tested using the W7 built in to make an image. When restoring my external USB 3.0 drive was not recognized even if I installed the drivers(this was done from inside windows, control panel). I then tried to boot from my Windows disc but got a popup with the message, freely translated from Swedish "If you want to restore the computer then the device that windows recovery environment runs in must be formatted in Windows. Start your computer with either a Windows Installation disc or a system repair disc and try again."

I finally made a new image and at the same time a recovery disc. This time I was able to boot into the recovery menu. I then switched discs to the one with motherboard drivers and installed the USB 3.0 drivers. This time the external drive with the image was recognized and I could use the image. It is strange though that I had to burn a recovery disc and that it did not accept the retail Windows 7 disc.