Disk imaging original laptop and setting up replacement

[serpico]

I've been playing around with my new laptop for a few days, and 2 of the 3 stuck pixels aren't bothering me, but the 3rd is a bright green pixel near the middle of the screen. I figured I would get used to it and ignore it (as I have stuck pixels on other monitors), but this pixel is so darn bright and centralized that it's very noticeable on a black background or on almost any video with slow moving images.

I'll give it another week or so, but if it's still bothering me, I may return it and order the exact same model.

Here's my issue: I have spent quite a bit of time setting this laptop up to my liking (clean XP install, drivers, apps, printers, etc.). If I decide to return it, what's the easiest way to transfer my entire setup to the new machine? Image the drive using Acronis True Image?

Does this method:
1. Copy the hidden partition?
2. Copy all the drivers so that the new machine runs without a hitch?
3. I was thinking I might image the drive to an external drive (the external drive can be larger than the imaged drive, right?). Does Acronis True Image allow you to create a bootable cd so that you can start Windows and find the external drive and overwrite the new drive with the image?

Are there any drivers, apps or settings that this method will not copy? I imagine it cannot copy Bios settings, but I can pretty easily replicate those since I haven't changed much from the factory settings.

Am I missing anything else, or is this method as simple and easy as it seems?

[serpico]

I've done a bit of searching on this issue, which is what formed the notion that imaging the disk will save me the trouble of reinstalling OS, drivers, apps, settings, etc., but would love to hear feedback from folks who have actually tried this.

Oh, and bump, bu-bump bump . . . bump.

[ageyfman]

Norton Ghost is pretty good for that - it can output the image to a DVD-R or to an USB drive, and will allow you to simply create a boot-up sequence to re-image the new machine (if all of the devices are the same, you shouldn't have any issues). I would recommend the DVD-R option, since booting off that may be much easier than booting of USB.

[serpico]

Norton Ghost is pretty good for that - it can output the image to a DVD-R or to an USB drive, and will allow you to simply create a boot-up sequence to re-image the new machine (if all of the devices are the same, you shouldn't have any issues). I would recommend the DVD-R option, since booting off that may be much easier than booting of USB.

The following, taken from the Norton Ghost v10 User Guide, has me a bit skeptical of using Ghost for what I'm trying to accomplish:

"You can use the Copy My Hard Drive feature when you
upgrade to a larger hard disk or when you add a second
hard disk and keep the original. You should not use this
feature to set up a hard disk that will be used in another
computer."

Even though the computer specs will be the same, it is a different computer, so maybe there are differences - i.e., a system ID or something like that, that may cause Ghost to fail.

[darrenf]

FWIW, when I first got my T60 I ghosted the stock hard drive onto a smaller PATA drive using a ultraslim drive caddy borrowed from the T4x. I then ghosted my old T4x drive onto the internal SATA drive using the same software (it's an old version of Ghost -- boots off floppy).

The image went fine but I had a driver problem in that copy of XP (unrelated to the drive clone) so I decided to restore the original image from the PATA drive that I ghosted to in the first instance. I decided not to restore the hidden partition so that I could reclaim the space. After restoring the partition (Ghost resized to fill the whole drive), I booted with a Win98se boot floopy and ran "fdisk /mbr" to put a normal boot record on the drive (the default boot record on these drives looks for the hidden partition).

After that the machine booted up and ran like a champ!

BTW: Be sure to disable the hidden partition protection in the BIOS before starting no matter what you do.

Good luck!

-darren