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True Image or Backup & recovery? HDD -> VHD

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Hey All,

I need some advice, I have a HDD from a laptop that died and I want to get it up and running again on a desktop as a Microsoft Virtual PC image. The Basics,

- HDD to image is a 320Gb SATA 2.5" drive (NTFS). 287Gb of the 320 is in use, was running Windows 7.
- Removed the HDD from the laptop and is now connected to desktop via an external USB enclosure.
- Obviously the desktop and laptop have dissimilar hardware.
- Desktop (host?) is Windows XP with a 1.5Tb SATA hard drive -using NTFS

After going through the Knowledge Base and forums, I am still unsure which i need, Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 Workstation with Universal Restore or Acronis True Image Home 2010 with Plus Pack?

I have only every converted a running system to a virtual image, have never tried converting an external hard drive partition to one, any advice or is it just straight forward? Is the fact that the image is going to be 287Gb a problem?

So which software should I get?

Thanks in advance for the help :)

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I have restored a system archive of my notebook PC running WinXp to a VHD using TIH 2010 and Plus Pack, and successfully booted it in Win7's VirtualPC. I haven't tried a restore yet to VirtualBox.

So in theory, either Acronis package + Universal Restore should give you the tools to do the job. The 300GB for a VHD is no problem, as long as you have the physical disk space, which it looks like you do. If you can access it as an external disk, you should also be able to image it with no problem.

Topics #6504 and #6148 talk a bit about restoring to VHD and VM using Universal Restore. If you have specific questions, I'll try to help where I can.

You probably already know this, but restoring to different hardware (even a VM) *will* trip Windows Activiation.

Good luck!