Migrating entire system to eee1000

Gotta have it - a new eee1000! Ok, a few messy details:

I want to buy it locally in Japan, which means it will have the Japanese version of XP on it. For me, there are disadvantages to this, but also some advantages, so I intend to keep it on the present C: partition.

I want to transfer my current system (now on a Toshiba Satellite) including the English version of XP, plus all my applications and data, to the empty 80Gb D: partition on the Asus. I thought I had this figured out, by using Acronis True Image. I have a full system image archive now on my external HDD, and thought I could install Acronis on the Asus or use the Acronis boot CD with an external optical drive, and then restore the full system archive onto the Asus D: partition.

But tonight I've been browsing and learned that this probably won't work because of some computer-specific files like the Master Boot Record (and something else...). Does that specificity mean only that the XP as transferred won't work? Will my applications still work if I boot from the Japanese OS?

Has anyone ever managed to do what I want to do? It seems something that would come up very often, yet I find hardly any information about doing this. Acronis' clone and migrate functions are all designed for when you need to swap HDDs, not to move systems on to a new machine.

 

acronis will definitely clone your original drive and the mbr. we have done it many times before with ghost mostly. used acronis a few times but it does work just as well. just clone your original system to a dvd disk. restore the image to the eepc. its that simple! you will run into an issue when you try to boot your eeepc because the drivers and hardware are very different. you will see a bsod most likely. at that time you should boot off the win xp disk and run a repair. that will clean things up and atleast let you boot to the os without bsod

 

This also will not work, because you won't have the correct drivers...

 

I guess you could also:
a) make an image with all the drivers installed (see later on why it's needed)
b) uninstall ALL the drivers that you can
c) make an image with the drivers uninstalled
d) restore the image at a) on the old computer (so you have working drivers again)
e) copy the "clean" image to the new computer.

Then if you run into BSOD, boot into safe mode, uninstall even more drivers etc. until you get it working. If you get it working.

I have never done such a thing myself (I prefer to install things anew on new machines, in the long run it's better...)

 

OK, so between this info and EBE's, I get the feeling that it will be very difficult. G2P is more encouraging, but I do not have an XP disk to boot off (or do you mean an emergency disk?).

What about this play: I restore the image of the old disk including the old XP on the empty partition, then get a eeePC version of the English XP reinstalled over the old version. I think the local vendor said he could do this. As I understand it, that would then have the correct drivers for the eee PC so it should boot up. Will it then identify any other incorrect drivers and repair them?

Another question - assuming I finally must do a complete software reinstall, is there any file I can copy from my system that contains all my passwords, cookies, etc.? That is always the most painful part for me - figuring out how to get back onto certain websites!

Thanks again for the help.

 

First of all, please note a legal issue: that the XP install on the Toshiba is probably an OEM license. This would typically not be legally transferable to a new computer. I guess it's fair use (at least IMHO) to copy the files and then change the serial number to that of the ASUS (assuming it'd work).

Secondly, why not just move all the personal data on non-OS partitions on the old drive (say, D); clone or copy those partitions to the new HDD (but NOT the OS partition); and then simply install XP from scratch on the remaining, 1st empty partition on the new HDD. Of course you would need an XP CD for this to work.

About passwords and cookies, if you're using Internet Explorer, I can't help you since I don't know. If you're using Firefox or another Mozilla browser, there will be a profile folder that you can simply copy over to the new computer, and then install a new copy of Firefox and point the computer to the copied profile location. Google for how to do that.

If you are using IE, stop immediately and switch to Firefox or another non-MS browser. Starting with the reason of IE's vulnerability to drive-by malware infections.

 

Thanks again. I would have the Asus XP installed by the dealer if I cannot successfully transfer the Toshiba OS.

My main concern is not the personal data, which is all backed up in native formats, but my applications, because some of my CDs have gone bad.

Thanks for the hint about Firefox profile folder. I am using Firefox now BTW.

Wondering if anyone ever tried a utility called Move Me. It sounds like it should do the job, but????

 

I was not encouraging you to use a toshi license on your asus. It is possible however unlikely you will be able to. Prior experience and tools are required. It is alot easier with an oem legal disk.

 

for all your programs to work you will have to copy the entire disk and boot sector. Moving files is one thing. Cloning is another

 

But everyone is telling me that cloning the disk (as with Acronis) will not work either because of the issues of proprietary XP, drivers, HAL, MBP, and so on.

What if I were to restore the cloned disk on the D: partition and then do a clean install of the Asus eee version of XP on top of the cloned Toshiba version? Do you think that might work?

 

That is correct. the only way to make it work is for you to be able to run a repair on the o.s. in xp it is done by booting off the oem disk. if you have a proprietory disk then there should be another way.
a 2nd weay which is not always possible is to boot to safe mode, remove all the drivers and hardware then reboot. This worked for me many times