DATA ONLY BACKUPS
I am using Acronis TI Home 2009, Build 9709 and have been making full backups of my one main C: drive to an external 100 G HD....able to store only three full image backups at a time....always delete the oldest. My OS is WinXP Home and I'm planning to buy a new computer in the near future. I understand that my Acronis program will probably not work with the new Win7, so most likely my new computer will have Vista. When I restore my saved XP image to the new computer, guess it will wipe out Vista on the new hard drive. My question is, can I just make a backup of everything on the old hard drive except for XP, then successfully restore that backup to my new hard drive with Vista? By the way, the old HD is 160G....new one will be at least 500G. I'm completely open to suggestions and advice....thanks in advance for help!
You can transfer only data files to the new computer. The apps will have to be re-installed. To be able to restore the XP image to the new computer you have to use the Universal Restore add-on to the Workstation version of True Image (and UR costs extra).
Another "gotcha" you might run into is that there may not be XP drivers for some of the hardware on the new Vista system.
DwnNDrty....thanks for your reply! I'm also looking at a new AMD Quadcore, 500G HD, computer on Ebay that is sold with no OS installed. Do you know if my image can be restored to that computer without too many problems or hassles? All necessary drivers/cds for DVD burner, etc., are included with this new computer.
You might need to perform a two stage process.
But one thing you could try (assuming you are including the XP OS at this point), is to make a special image of your present system, with the video card set at the low resolution or even with the video card driver disabled and just using the stock Windows driver. This might allow normal booting from the restored image.
The two stage process.
Restore using a normal image of your current system and then use a Windows XP install CD to run a system repair, this will install generic drivers that should allow your system to boot.
You could then run your Vista DVD over the top to perform an upgrade to XP, although this won't be a 'clean' install, it'll save you having to re-install all your programs.
If you upgrade to W7, you will not be able to easily upgrade over XP, but would over the top of Vista.
Bodgy....thanks for trying to help! At this point the new computer I'm considering comes with no OS at all installed....all I want to do is restore one of the backups to the new empty HD. I do have a Bootable Rescue Media CD made to use in the restore process.
Hi Gary,
I think you are making a mistake trying to stay with Win XP when you buy a new computer. Windows 7 is a good OS, and it's the future. Your TI 9 won't work on Vista or Win 7, so you'll have to update in any event.
Restoring an XP image to a newer computer is likely to be major project. As was noted, you'll need an XP installation CD that can do an "upgrade in place" re-installation. That's not a feature that OEM restore disks have. They just put an image of XP back on the drive, they normally can't run a full installation which is what you need to be able to do.
When you think about a new system, you should also think about 64-bit Windows 7. The 32-bit versions of Windows can only use 4GB of RAM minus the memory used by your video card and some drivers. Figure, the max is around 3.5GB. In a few years, that won't be enough. (Unless you are buying a new computer that you only intend to keep for a year or two.)
When XP came out, MS said it would run on 256MB. We all know that with SP3 installed you really need 1GB. That's four times as much. Vista needs 2GB and Win 7 perhaps a bit less, but in the future, it will need more than 4GB, so the 64-bit version is the way to go.
Hope the thoughts are useful.
There are various reasons to change/upgrade operating systems or to stick with them but John King makes some points to consider. XP is getting pretty long in the tooth now even if it is pretty good. OTOH, nothing wrong with giving it a try and then upgrade when you feel it is a necessity. However, if I were gettng a new quadcore computer it would not be running XP.
I'd agree with the earlier posts and probably not recommend XP considering where you're headed. From everything I understand you're only option anyway is if you have a retail version of XP. XP will recognize that your configuration isn't the same when it's restored on a new machine and once that happens you're now involved with MS to get it validated on the new machine. Not a huge problem with the retail version but my understand is it's impossible on an OEM version unless you can convince them it's a replacement machine. I was able to make it work with a replacement laptop from Dell of the same model number but slightly different configurations but that won't be your case.
Sure do appreciate all the great advice....sounds like I really don't have much choice but to wean myself away from XP! Guess I'll go with Vista Home Premium, 64 bit OS then upgrade to Win 7 sometime in the future....Just hate like hell to have to bite the bullet and reinstall everything all over again. 8^(
Being kind of computer illiterate, hope ya'll will forgive me for stupid questions! But as I stated earlier, I have Acronis TI Home 2009 which according to previous posts won't work with Vista or Win7. Once I get my new system with Vista 64 bit, then how do I upgrade my TI Home 09 to a version that'll work for me?
Hello all,
Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.
Gary Roberts, please be aware that we have released a new program - Acronis True Image Home 2010 and it supports Windows 7.
One more important thing: we would not recommend you to upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista, since we're aware of some issues with work of such upgraded system. If it's possible for you - just do clean install of Windows 7 and recover your personal data by means of our program. This is a safest method...
Thank you.