is this possible ?

[grahamdvddvddvd]

I have been playing around with a old pc, I was going to set everything up, all music loaded, all desktop icons, all software installed, new operating system installed etc......Then can I copy everything and burn it on to some discs and then get another pc and install everything on it, OS, all files, settings so it will be a mirror image of the other ? many thanks

[Mach]

You can but the other PC has to be identical hardware wise so that there is no incompatibility with drivers. We do this at work where we everybody has the same laptop. We create a drive image, a master, and then copy it to the new computers. The software you'll need is something like Norton Ghost (which I hear has fallen down in quality) or DriveImage which I use but it's an old copy. You may not be able to buy it anymore.

[grahamdvddvddvd]

hi its not the same hardware on the other pc...thanks

[Nick_Black]

yes you could, though I advice you copy hard drives, rather then using CD's.

also, you said different hardware, which could be a problem for drivers, also the operating system might give a little hissyfit saying "hey! this is a diffrent computer, please re-format and do it all from scratch!" .. but I will admit, I have only done this once, and that was a long time ago.. things might have changed by now, plus I wasn't the brightest pie in the cake back then...

[theshoeshineman]

When you install Windows, the OS takes a look at the hardware and installs the appropriate drivers.

If you were to take out the hard drive and place it in another computer there is a good chance the OS will not even start.

If the OS does start and there doesn't seem to be any problems you could try "ghosting" the drive to copy it's contents onto another drive.

In my experience, unless your wanting to setup 10 computers it isn't worth the trouble. You'll spend more time pissing into the wind trying to find the right software to copy it than it would take to install everything the old fashioned way.

[billygoat333]

I have taken a drive from one computer and put it into another, just booted with safe mode and updated drivers accordingly, worked fine for me. All I had to load was diff. vid card drivers and wifi drivers, everything else was the same or was recognized. Course, this was with somewhat similar hardware (besides the video card, cd burner and wifi) and was on win98 :P