Newbie question migrating cloned hard drive to new Laptop
I have two identical Vista OS laptops purchased 3 yrs ago new One was put in service the other in storage. The one in storage has never been turned on, but has OEM Vista installed. I need to put it in service, and have cloned the hard drive of the #1 laptop with Acronis true image WD version to a WD external USB hard drive. Now my basic question is, if I activate laptop # 2, it will load the original version of Vista Home Premium, before SP1 or 2, if I then execute a recovery of the cloned OS and data from true image, will it overwrite the original OS with all new updates and service packs without incident? Or will new hard drive need to be formated first? Or will true image try to format new hard drive during process?
I'am new here and if this is covered somewhere else in forum, please advise.
Thank you.
OK, I did make the acronis restore disk, so I go to new laptops bios and tell it to boot from CD. The Acronis disk will have a wizard to clone the entire hard drive from the WD external drive, is that correct? Acronis has named the cloned partitions with letters F and G. Original hard drive partitions are C and D. Will they be called F and G on new laptop or can I change them back to C and D? I'm not clear that a "backup" is the same as a cloning operation? I don't believe this free version for WD will do differental backups, i.e will just add new or changed data to restore disk. It looks like its a one time image, that will be completely overwritten with each backup operation??? Instructions are not clear on this version of true image.
Can this also be done by loading acronis true image program on new computer, and tell it to clone to itself from the external hard disk? Also the laptop manufacturer had a bios update that has not been done on the new unused laptop, might that effect cloning operation? Should I boot up new computer first, connect to internet and download new bios, before doing a cloning operation?
Don't worry about the way ATI named the partitions.
If you have a backup, use the CD to restore.
If you have a clone, do another clone from the USB disk to the laptop.
To know whether you have a backup or a clone, just inspect the contents of your USB disk. If you see a somewhat big TIB file, you have a backup. Ifyou see the same content as on your other laptop, you have a clone.
Still the question, do I have to have Acronis program loaded to new laptop to transfer files from USB hard drive?
No use the Rescue CD if your going to clone or restore.
Acronis does NOT have to be installed. Most functions (such as backup, recovery, validation) can be performed when booted from the TI Rescue/Recovery CD.