Being lazy, putting an image on a similar model of machine

[Little-Miss]

We've been using Toshiba NB200 netbooks for a year and because they are quite nice little machines i've bought some Toshiba NB300 this year.

 

Now i have an image for the NB200's...soo...what would happen if i put it on the NB300's....i'm guessing that the drivers wont match but wouldnt i just be able to sort that out and take another image from it?

 

Are you all gasping in horror?! lol

[webman]

Is there a huge difference in the hardware between the two models? Just try it and see what's broken and find out what it would take to fix. If it doesn't work so well, make a new image

[jamesreedersmith]

Normally in this case i would

 

Install image onto machine - run windows repair.

 

INstall missing drivers

 

Take new image for rest of batch

[EvLPhenom]

Normally in this case i would

 

Install image onto machine - run windows repair.

 

INstall missing drivers

 

Take new image for rest of batch

 

Pretty much what i would do. Although you may be lucky and not have to run windows repair.

[timzim]

If the machine boots into Windows first time with the old image you can sometimes get away with just running the driver install CD/DVD that comes with the machine. You might have to remove one or two of the original drivers (e.g. sound drivers) afterwards if you get conflicts.

[6Foot2]

Not gasping in horror at all. This is what I have done to several of my images so that I can move the images along as hardware gets updated.

 

This does not always work but has been quite successful until now.

 

It has allowed me to move from XP Pro [no service pack] to XP Pro SP3. That is a success in my book.

[strawberry]

clean tidy way is to use mdt, then you can add an image to just about any machine by injecting the drivers. takes a day to setup, but makes deployment much easier.

[SimpleSi]

Always worth a go - as long as it doesn't blue screen you normally win

 

If it blue screens - (or do it anyway before you try the first time) in device manager change the disc drive drivers from whatever they are to basic IDE so that the new computer stands better chance of booting OK.

 

Also, download as many drivers for the new machine onto the old machine in a c:\ drive folder so that you don't end up in catch 22 trying to load drivers from a usb stick/net drive when the USB/net drive isn't working

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

clean tidy way is to use mdt, then you can add an image to just about any machine by injecting the drivers. takes a day to setup,

 

Whats mdt?

regards

 

Simon

[Mr.Ben]

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

[computer_expert]

Whats mdt?

regards

 

Simon

 

Microsoft deployment tools.

 

(also, when the word is underlined with dots, like mdt is, just roll the mouse over it and it should bring up a description)

[strawberry]

Whats mdt?

regards

 

Simon

Microsoft Deployment toolkit. Allows you to create images from install media, Add the unattend.txt and install software using a nice menu system. It can also upload base images and inject drivers. Makes life so much easier!. It can also be used to install just software, which using run as means your staff can use it.

[Little-Miss]

it was pretty painless. Thanks!

[Little-Miss]

Hmm, if i'm going to do a new image of the old image with these updated drivers....do i need to sysprep?

[6Foot2]

When I moved an image from one machine to another in the way that this thread covers I already had Sysprep in place in the old [going to new] image.

 

Why would you not want Sysprep there?

[Domino]

Worth noting, this can cause issues if you go from a multi-processor HAL to a single....

 

The other way round CAN work, but YMMV

[BatchFile]

Some of my images are on their 3rd or 4th machine! I've got some IBM Thinkstations that think they're Toshiba laptops FFS (I admit I did that in a hurry though)

 

works fine for me!

[SimpleSi]

Some of my images are on their 3rd or 4th machine! I've got some IBM Thinkstations that think they're Toshiba laptops FFS (I admit I did that in a hurry though)

 

Did you have any Windows validation issues? (and how did you sort them?)

 

Last time I did this on completely disimlar hardware -old teacher DELLs (that would have taken a lifetime to reset up) to new Fujitsu's - I just had to keep telling porkies to the automatic phone system that I was sure it was running on the same hardware

 

regards

 

Simon

[Tyiell]

Are you all gasping in horror?! lol

 

Like my favourite university lecturer always said: it's ok to cheat - so long as you cheat clever!!

[BatchFile]

Did you have any Windows validation issues? (and how did you sort them?)

 

Last time I did this on completely disimlar hardware -old teacher DELLs (that would have taken a lifetime to reset up) to new Fujitsu's - I just had to keep telling porkies to the automatic phone system that I was sure it was running on the same hardware

 

regards

 

Simon

 

Nope - School agreement so everything (up to Vista and Office 2010) comes pre activated - this is XP

[Duke5A]

I don't know how far you would want to take this, but I have a single Windows XP Pro image I made for about a dozen or so different hardware specs, it makes life a fair amount easier. In a nutshell, I created the image on a dual processor reference machine, added driver support to it for the other models into the sysprep.inf file, added sata drivers to the mass storage section, sysprep'd it, and captured it. There is a couple of pitfalls to watch out for when initially setting up the sysprep inf, but once it is set, it's set.

[ChrisH]

I have done a "universal" XP image recently. It supports most of the popular mass storage devices and can switch between AMD and Intel CPUs. I will be doing a write up soon on my blog. I did it using MDT but I will describe alternatives if you want to do it manually by running sysprep and adding extra drivers.

[tech_guy]

I have done a "universal" XP image recently. It supports most of the popular mass storage devices and can switch between AMD and Intel CPUs. I will be doing a write up soon on my blog. I did it using MDT but I will describe alternatives if you want to do it manually by running sysprep and adding extra drivers.

 

I'll look forward to reading that. Thanks.