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Can I copy this and save $10,000?

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I have a 256GB SSD drive in my computer with Windows 7 installed on it that I want to clone to a 320GB SATA drive and use on a different machine.  Can I do this with Backupper?

I realize there may be issues with performance but I would rather see how this works than dismiss it.

I have a very expensive software program that is tied to my computer.  The problem is that running the software uses up all resources and keeps me from doing anything else.  My thought is to clone my drive and let it run on my other computer since it is more powerful.  It will cost me too much money to change the license key to the other computer.  The new computer will only be used to operate this software for a month or two.

Do you think I can accomplish this by cloning the drive?

I tried Reflect and although it says it is successful, I keep getting a “Non system disk error” message so I looked around and found this company.

Thanks!

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I tried Reflect and although it says it is successful, I keep getting a “Non system disk error” message so I looked around and found this company.

Thanks!

Steve, some comments from your questions above.

  1. Backupper is not an Acronis product, it is produced by AOMEI.
  2. If your very expensive software program is tied to one of your computers, then cloning the disk and moving it to another computer is unlikely to be a valid solution unless the software program licensing mechanism is extremely basic - most will be tied into the hardware signature of the machine where the software is installed.
  3. Just cloning the drive and moving it to disimilar hardware raises questions about the operating system licensing in addition to there being no guarantee that the cloned system will work without requiring additional hardware drivers.  There is also the possibility that each system has or requires different boot configurations, i.e. UEFI for more recent systems that could give rise to your 'Non system disk error'.

 

Steve,

Acronis have a product called Universal Restore, which is used to restore an image to different hardware.  Universal Restore is included with ATI 2016, but you have to download it separately.

So, you would create a Full Partition list backup of your current computer and perform a Universal Restore to the more powerful computer.  There may be Windows licensing issues.  Also, your expensive software license may be tied to the MAC address of your current computer.  So it may not run, even if you get your fast computer to boot.

Regards,

FtrPilot

Thanks guys for the feedback.  Doesn't sound like it is going to be as simple as I hoped but still worth trying - as long as I do not accidently delete my good data as some appear to do easily.

 

Most likely the licensing is based on the MAC address.

If it's strictly MAC based - you can easily spoof the MAC address of the new system to make it appear the same as the old one.  This is supported directly in Windows and doesn't need any third party or shady software to do.

 

However, i'm sure that's against the EULA, but would be very easy to do.  I can't condone going against the EULA, but if it is not an issue and you really want to test, there should be no risk in taking a full disk image of your existing computer and pushing that image to the new hard drive in your other computer.  Use Universal Restore to generlize the drivers so that Windows can boot (assuming both systems have compatible BIOS and they are configured similarlary - i.e. both support MBR or GPT (whatever the current system is) and both support UEFI or Legacy CSM bios (whatever the current system is).   Worse case scenario, it doesnt' work, but it won't prevent your existing computer from not being able to function if you don't muck around with it.

Once you have a functioning system with your pushed image, then you can try your applicaiton and see how it goes.  If it is only MAC based, spoof the MAC of the old one onto the new system.  

Here's a third party tutorial on changing your ethernet adapter MAC address. I don't sponsor, endorse or support them... just pointing out one website that explains and shows how to do it.

http://www.howtogeek.com/192173/how-and-why-to-change-your-mac-address-…

Thank you for sharing this.  I'm pretty sure an overall hardware signature in addition to the MAC address is used to generate an ID.  My hope is that once the software is registered, it doesn't look forwardware changes and stays working as it does now.

 

Spoofing the entire hardware configuration may work but I'm not sure if that is possible.

 

I'll post an update once I know more.