Backup image software...

[AND1]

Is there any software that creates an image backup of your system like ghost able to create an image on one computer and be able to load it onto another comp?

[Moloko_Plus]

Nero 6, Powerquest drive image, Stomp Backup My PC, Norton ghost, Symantec Ghost, Acronis True Image (I think, if not this check acronis's site for whatever does)
I dont know about loading it onto another computer, but this software all makes images.

[AND1]

I know which software make images. My question is which of the one's you mentioned allow me to make a backup from one computer and load it into another.

[Hardcoreruss]

Ghost

[Faustus]

Based on the fact that he mentioned Ghost I'm assuming he would looking for an alternative. However I agree ghost works great.

[Hardcoreruss]

If Ghost is a no go then PQ datakeeper works also

[pyscrow]

Power Quest Drive image is good but pricey!

[Jayhawk]

Acronis Trueimage 7.0 does it and now includes their product Migrate Easy (built-in) which will let you resize to the new hard drive (or not) if that's what you need to do. Also has the advantage of backing up while in Windows or from a bootable CD. A little pricey at $50.

NTI's DriveImage is another good product that will do it and it's $30. Not quite as flexible as TrueImage but will get the job done.

[Hardcoreruss]

What do you mean by "resize" surely if the backup does not fit the new drive your fucked ?, and if the new drive is larger then it doesn't matter.

[Jayhawk]

What do you mean by "resize" surely if the backup does not fit the new drive your fucked ?, and if the new drive is larger then it doesn't matter.

Some of the software out there will force you to restore what you have backed up. If you have a 30g image and want to load it on your new 60g hard drive they will restore the 30g period. Maybe you want the partition "expanded" to 60g, maybe not. The more sophisticated software product will let you expand or contract on the fly. You're right in that you can't put 60g into 30g but going the other way is very common. Because the TOC defines the partition, restoring a 30g defined partition to a 60g hard drive will not automatically result in a 60g partition. It will result in a 30g partition and 30g of undefined space.

[housepig]

although you may run into a problem - if your system specs aren't the same, you will be putting in an image of an OS that expects to see soundcard X, video card Y and pci controller Z, etc. etc. etc. - if your hardware isn't the same, this can cause system instability.

[AND1]

Housepig you're right the system specs are not the same. Is it still possible to do with a certain type of software or am I out of luck.

[housepig]

you might be able to do it with some of the "system migration" packages, but doing a straight image may cause problems.

I would say try it first, if you have Ghost or something similar, and if you experience problems, try one of those system migrators...

how much stuff do you have on this box? can't you just set a few hours aside and re-install?

[Jayhawk]

I haven't run across any migration utilities that would adjust drivers for different components any better than Windows itself. The problem areas stability-wise are probably going to be chipset related (as noted by housepig).

It might be worth a shot as Windows will add new hardware and delete entries for non-existent hardware but you probably will have a lot of crap (DLL's, infs, programs) that you don't need. All things considered you will probably spend more time cleaning up than you would doing a clean install.