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

Edited March 29, 2011 by koryo

[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.

[Little-Miss]

well, im currently putting the image on another laptop so we'll see what happens...

[powdarrmonkey]

well, im currently putting the image on another laptop so we'll see what happens...

 

Just remember that whatever was in the image will now be on the other laptop, which might have privacy implications.

[plexer]

Sysprepping a machine will not lose any of the users data however due to the fact that security id's may have changed she may not be able to access files until you reset ownership/permissions unless her account is an administrator.

 

Ben

[Little-Miss]

ARGH!!

 

Well everything is intact, did have some ownership issues but i think they're ok now...but!

 

it hasnt sorted the reason i was doing all this anyway!!!!! SO IT WAS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND UNDERWEAR!

 

Thanks everyone thats helped!

Edited March 29, 2011 by Little-Miss