Free software to deploy image to new/dissimilar hardware

Soldato
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I have a few laptops I want to image to a another one with different hardware. Old Core 2 duo laptops going to i5 laptops. I don't want to go through the effort of reinstalling Windows 7 and hunting down the software to reinstall. If I put the HDD's into the laptop's it BSOD after bootup. So I need a piece of software which will let me take an image of the old laptop and put it on the new laptops without breaking the OS.

I was able to do this a few years back with Paragon Imaging software but it looks like they have removed this feature from the free version and the version of Acronis True Image Home 2011 I have does not work on Windows 8 :mad:

Does anyone know any free software which will allow me to do this?
 
the reason you're having problem cos both laptops have different hardware.

you need to sysprep with generalise. it will 'disconnect' all hardware with drivers and search for new hardware to install drivers when first time boot up after deploy.

sysprep with generalize, you'll need an offline WDS with command. its not simple. it'll invlove some process.

i've done it before at home when i did not had a time to setup the WDS server
 
actually there is an easier way

install acronis true image trial. when you done that. create the acronis bootable CD. (i've done it in the past)

sysprep with generalise shut it down.

boot up the acronis CD. make an new image to usb external hard drive or anywhere.

boot up the new laptop with acronis CD and deploy the image.

should work
 
none of 3rd party software sysprep the image.

sysprep is not cloner software. its just a small feature that preparing the image to deploy to different hardware configuration . you use any 3rd party software to capture the syspreped image and deploy.
 
sysrep what?

how come when I went from an amd computer to intel the only thing I kept was a hdd and dvd writer.

windows installed everything on it's first boot?
 
sysrep what?

how come when I went from an amd computer to intel the only thing I kept was a hdd and dvd writer.

windows installed everything on it's first boot?

It depends. 95% of time with Windows Vista onwards you can swap chipsets without any fuss. Only reactivation and let the drivers install but on this occasion I am not so lucky. First time ever actually.

Going to sysprep tomorrow.
 
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