I've made a stupid boo boo!...

[Little-Miss]

Help!!

With this whole T61 thing not shutting down properly, i thought to myself, i know i'll grab an image of my friends laptop as that works fine and stick that on.

I went into auto mode and did a sysprep...

So now it's on the screen where it wants me to put in a serial number...what do i do. I'm guessing her stuff is still there as i havent wiped anything..

Is there anyway of rescuing it and restoring it to how it was?

Help

I don't know why i bothered to try and operate machinary today, i havent got the head for it at the moment!

[Little-Miss]

HOW TO: Disable the Mini-Setup Wizard on a Windows XP-Based Computer on Which You Used Sysprep

Is this what i need?

[Hightower]

can you not just use the key that should be on the sticker on the laptop?

[tech_guy]

If you've created an image of her laptop it will contain all her files and settings.

[Little-Miss]

If i continue with the mini-setup it wont lose anything?

[tech_guy]

Oh, hang on I didn't read your post properly - you've sysprepped it - I'll have to check.

[powdarrmonkey]

If all you did was sysprep the machine as it was, it should all be there when you finish mini-setup (although you'll have to activate it again, probably not automatically).

disclaimer: "should" is not "will".

[Little-Miss]

Not that i dont trust PM's wisdom...but anyone else got an opinion before i just go for it? Cus as he said, should isnt will.

[tech_guy]

I've never sysprepped a machine with a user's files in situ and I can't find anything via the mighty Google. Can you not clone the hdd using something like DriveImage XML or Ghost and stick it in your laptop and see what happens?

[Little-Miss]

taking an image now

[sted]

im 90% sure it retains users data im sure ive done it before and when fired out ive founf fils in my docs\desktop before

[themightymrp]

Sysprepping won't lose the work. I've done it before. The only time things screw up are when you do a Windows Repair from the XP CD, that writes over the documents and settings folder and is a pain in the a**e!

[powdarrmonkey]

To be fair I've done it plenty of times before... I just don't want it to break something *this* time and get the blame

[koryo]

im 90% sure it retains users data im sure ive done it before and when fired out ive founf fils in my docs\desktop before

hmm, just a hunch, but couldn't you go into audit mode and get the documents that way?

What is Sysprep?

see "booting to audit mode" for a description

[powdarrmonkey]

hmm, just a hunch, but couldn't you go into audit mode and get the documents that way?

Too late, the machine's been sealed already.