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restoring to dissimilar hardware -- what bootable media and what drivers do I need?

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Hi,

I am planning to migrate my hard drive (Windows 7 64-bit) from my old hardware configuration to a new (upgraded) configuration. I read knowledge base article 34283: http://kb.acronis.com/content/34283, carefully and made some bootable discs, but I'm not sure I have everything I need. I made my bootable disc from Acronis True Image 2014 Premium with media-add-on. I think this is the disc article refers to as "Acronis Universal Restore" -- correct? I also made a WinPE bootable disc but I'm not sure I need that. Do I?

I am really confused by the the sentence that says I need mass storage drivers for the new computer. Doesn't Windows come with the basic drivers for HDD and USB? Why would I need a path to those? I do have all my new motherboards chipset drivers and can provide them on a separate disc if needed. Will I need those during the restore? Thanks for any advice -- especially if somebody has actually done this!

Barbara

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Barbara,

The upgrade path is always one of those unpleasant journeys we users take from time to time that can turn out to be not that bad if we take the time to research and plan the upgrade. You have made the right first steps so far, now you just need your questions answered and possibly a little help finding the right solution for you. Let's try to answer your questions posted here.

Acronis Universal Restore is a built in tool of the Premium 2014 Bootable Media Disk. It sounds like you have created this disk.

WinPE Disk would be an alternate method for running the Acronis Bootable Media app. Difference is WinPE is windows based, Acronis Bootable Media is Linux based.

The concept of Universal Restore is simple, allow this feature to reconfigure Windows OS Restore after restoration and prior to Boot to access new hardware and additionally carry over what is called the disk signature file of the old hard drive to the new so that Windows will not complain about Activation.

You are correct in that Windows does contain it's own native driver set for most hardware. Windows uses those drivers during OS install routines to configure itself for the present hardware during installation. In your case you are going to change this preconfigured arrangement within Windows on an existing install, a different cat all together. Thus the need for access to and the ability to update drivers and configuration of Windows and the new hardware.

Let's say for example you are upgrading from an existing IDE storage device to one that you wish to run in AHCI mode, you would need the AHCI drivers to make that change during the restore process or you face completing the restore in IDE mode and after you get up and running then manually make the change from within Windows. Let's say that you wish to take advantage of third party storage drivers such as IRST (Intell Rapid Storage Technology) instead of Windows native drivers, you would need to have access to those drivers during the restore process for Universal Restore to use and do it's job. Same holds true for chipset and NIC drivers. USB not so much as those can be installed if need be after successful Restore.

Hope you find this helpful.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Now I'm clear on what media disks I need (I'll probably use the universal restore disk), and getting clearer on what drivers I need. I have all the drivers that came with my new ASUS motherboard and all the additional drivers I could find on their website that pertain to my motherboard loaded onto a separate DVD disk, ready for use during my upgrade. These include chipset, RAID and SATA drivers as well as others like USB3, LAN, etc.

My only remaining question is about my hard drive, a new Western Digital desktop performance 2 TB (I am migrating from this drive back to this drive -- not to a different drive as this one is new). I just checked and it's set to IDE in the BIOS. (To tell you the truth, I didn't know anything about AHCI mode until I read your reply, but it sounds like something I might like to have for the future). Can I enable AHCI mode for my Western Digital drive when I make the restore? If so, how, and where can I get the drivers I need? Or are they already present in the ASUS RAID or SATA drivers? Thanks so much for your help.

Barbara

Barbara,

I would think that AHCI drivers would be included in whatever drivers you have taken from the ASUS site. You should be able to open the drivers folder and view the names of the driver files the folder contains. Just look for AHCI in the file name. By the way good choice going with the ASUS board. I have used them for years, will not use anything else, and have had very good luck with them.

Might I ask how you intend to migrate your disk? I would suspect you would do a disk mode backup of the disk to an external device and then restore that image back to a freshly formatted drive. Sound about right? If this is what you have planned I would encourage you to wipe the drive before restoring to it. Some caution would need to be done with that but I believe you would have a much better result if you do so.

Hi Bob,

Thanks, I found several drivers with AHCI in the file name. How would I ask Acronis/Windows 7 to install AHCI mode rather than IDE? Is there some point in the install where I would go into the BIOS and choose AHCI? Would this be the correct procedure?

Thanks for the advice about formatting my drive. Yes, I made a disk mode image of my old/current drive yesterday and I chose validate while making it, so it should be good, right? After all, it's Acronis :-) I will reformat my drive before starting the upgrade. I have a system repair disk and I found directions on how to reformat my drive from this. My current drive has 3 partitions, C, D, and E. Once I reformat it, there will only be one partition (I assume). Will Acronis restore put the partitions back the way they were? Thanks again.

Barbara

P.S. I have directions on how to restore partition by partition, but reformatting sound more straightforward. http://forum.acronis.com/system/files/mvp/user285/guides/tih2012-restor…

Oops, what was I thinking? Of course if I reformat each partition I'll still have all 3 partitions, so all I'll have to do is get Acronis to restore them the way they were.

Thanks again, Bob. Is there some way I can indicate what a great help you've been? Click on 5 stars somewhere?

Barbara

Hope I'm not butting in but Bob said wipe, not format. Wiping is an entirely different thing involving removing all data from the drive. Formatting does not do that.

Hi Barbara,
As far as retrieving the requested drivers for your migration, please have a look at post # 1 regarding Double Driver.
By using it, you eliminate any issue with drivers .

Barbara,
I presume I would have been better off to put a link on my previous post.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/55531#comment-171044
Sorry...

Hi Everybody,

Thanks again for your comments and help. I would like to report that I did a successful upgrade from my old motherboard and CPU to a new motherboard and CPU, using the same hard drive. I would like to especially thank Bob Huffman who was very helpful. Thanks Bob!

Here's some gotcha's and important things I learned that I would like to pass along to anybody else who is doing this. First of all, as per this article: http://kb.acronis.com/content/34283, you need bootable restore media (I used a DVD), made with Acronis Premium, but it may not be the Acronis Universal Restore Media that you need. The universal media, which is Linux-based, did not work for me, but luckily, I also made an Acronis/WinPE bootable DVD which did work. Here's a link on how to do that: http://kb.acronis.com/content/46255. You also might need a Windows Restore disk to boot to in order to wipe your hard drive before restoring it to the new hardware configuration. And of course, you already made your backups and Acronis validated image of your old drive to some external media before you started, right?

You also need the chipset drivers for your new hardware. You should be able to get the drivers from your new motherboard disk or site. The same article, http://kb.acronis.com/content/34283, mentions mass storage drivers. In my case, these were included in the chipset drivers, so I didn't have to look any further for them. Good luck!

Barbara

Here's some more helpful links: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATIH2014/index.html#…, http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATIH2014/index.html#…