Transfering programs and data between Alienware laptops

Hi, I currently own an M17x R2 and will be moving shortly to an R3. My question is simple, the answer probably not... I'm looking to transfer almost 200 pc games and some programs currently installed on my R2 to the R3 without having to reinstall them obviously. What would be the easiest/simplest way to do this?

Has anyone done this before? Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Acronis 2011 for Home with plus pak claims to restore to different hardware.

According to their website: Restore to Dissimilar Hardware Restore a computer to dissimilar hardware regardless of make, model, or installed components, or to a virtual machine.

Cheers,

 

Move the hard drive from the R2 to the R3 as second drive and replace the r2 drive new.

 

What? How will that give him a fully functioning Windows 7 install w/o reinstalling all those programs? That'll just move the drive over with the data on it but doesn't do anything about installing the actual programs so they're usable.

Cheers,

 

Uninstall ALL drivers, then swap the disk to the R3 and then install all the drivers. So when it goes into the R3, it is a basic and bare windows 7. Once it boots into the R3, Win 7 should install it's appropriate drivers to work on your system. Then you can install the specific drivers to get the most from the system. That may work. I've never done it but it's worth a shot.

 

If the chipset is different the new system won't even boot with the old drive. sometimes booting from windows boot disk and repairing the drive will allow boot but can also render disk unusable on both systems.

Cheers,

 

I won't be swapping the disks, I was planning on ordering the R3 from HIDevolution with the 500GBX2 Hybrids. Acronis sounds like the answer, thanks panzer06!

Does the R3 have AlienRespawn or did they get rid of that?

 

Is has AlienRespawn, so be sure to burn your restore dvd, or usb when you get it!

 

Thanks, glad I asked

 

I have to disagree with the people telling you to image and dump it on your new system....getting a new system is the best time to start over and get a CLEAN system....you say games? are they steam games? if so you can back them up in steam and restore them on your new system....if they are not, take the time and reinstall them...SERIOUSLY, you new system doesnt need the baggage from your old R2...... If you are dead set on imaging, make sure you sysprep first. do in in -audit mode first, then in -generalize -oobe mode second. This will allow you to at least be able to install the drivers in the cleanest way possible.
But if you image as opposed to reinstalling, you are not going to get the best possible performance out of your new system, and isnt that why you are getting an alienware?

 

I understand and mostly agree, but the fact is I'm basically switching/upgrading my laptop every year, year and a half. I own half digital and half hard copies of my games and I'm just looking for a way to not have to reinstall 100 hard copy games every year or so. If there was a way to make a selective image that would only include software...

By the way, does anyone have any experience with Acronis Home Plus Pak?

 

I own it but have only used it to clone disks on the same machine. If I have some time I will try this since the M17x has eSATA I can create a full clone of my ASUS G73 and see if the drive will boot on the M17xR3 once I finish. Ought to be an interesting experiment.

Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus Pack: Restoring to Dissimilar Hardware with Acronis Universal Restore | Knowledge Base

Cheers,

 

That would be awesome! I'd be really interested in software that deals with making a selective image or extracting registry values associated with a program and reinstalling them along with that program on a different system. It shouldn't be that difficult... I guess people just prefer to reinstall everything.

 

Hmmm, looks like selective restoration is out. Recovering an entire drive or partition from one hardware platform to another with the same OS, i.e. win 7 64bit, is all that's supported.

Acronis Products Cannot Be Used to Transfer Applications to Different System | Knowledge Base

I think I'll still run through the exercise to see if it works. Might be interesting.

Cheers,

 

"Acronis products are designed as a backup and recovery solution, and they do not have the special functionality to transfer or recover installed programs to a different system." What does?!?

Looking forward to your test results panzer06!

 

OK, here's the scoop.

In order to do this you must:

1.) Buy both Acronis Home 2011 & the related Plus Pak.
2.) Install it on the original machine and create the bootable media, preferably on a USB stick. Extract all the necessary boot drivers for rhe R3 and place them in a Dell directory on the memory stick (there are subdirectories for each driver set)
3.) Boot from the USB stick and backup the boot drive of the original machine to a USB connected external drive (or internal drive if you have one with available space). The drive you backup to must be available to connect to the target machine for the recovery operation.
4.) Once the backup is complete, move the bootable Acronis USB stick to the target machine.
5.) Start the target machine and press F12 for the AW M17xR3 boot menu.
6.) Select Removable Devices from the boot menu and boot from the USB stick.
7.) Once Acronis loads select the full program (first menu item, default is 3rd item boot into Windows)
8.) Select Recovery and follow the wonderful instructions I sent you in one of the prior links. Pay close attention to the part about selecting the path to the Dell drives you extracted and saved into the Dell directory in Step 2 above. You will need at a minimum the chipset, storage, LAN or WAN drivers. Select the backup file and recover to location: (internal or eSATA - I used eSATA so I could play with this w/o disrupting my working config). Start the restore.
9.) Once the restore is complete the system will successfully boot on the R3.

Sounds all well and good doesn't it. Well nothing like this ever goes smoothly so be prepared to deal with any drivers for hardware previously installed on the original system to wreck havoc on your new system. In my case all the ASUS drivers and software caused several blue screens before I could get them all uninstalled. (Perhaps if I'd have cloned the ASUS boot drive first (as a backup since I still use the ASUS) and then un-installed all ASUS related drivers before using Acronis it might have gone more smoothly -- Also maybe driver sweeper or something like that would have been in order once it came up)

After several reboots, uninstalls and installation of the remaining Dell drivers everything except the ATI drivers are up and running (CCC crashes and the 6970 driver will not install 1280x720 max). At this point I'm no longer fascinated nor interested.

So I guess the conclusion is: It's possible to use Acronis to recover to dissimilar hardware, however, depending on how adept you are with driver manipulation you may not easily get everything working. For the 5 or 6 games I'm currently playing it certainly would have been easier (and faster) to reinstall the OS and all the programs. With 100+ programs and coming from one AW system to another ... YMM and it might be worth it to you.

I wish you well on your adventure.

Cheers,

 

Thanks for the scoop panzer, I'll certainly give it a try! I'm crazy enough to experiment until I find a stable setup, after which I could post a guide on here for any interested folks?... Seems I'm the only one willing to do it. Things might get really interesting if I go with a Sager...

Again, thanks for your help: REP!