Running someone elses Windows environment in another computer?

Scream

Scream

Scream

Soldato
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The motherboard packed up on a mates computer and I have replaced it. The downside is, I have to install windows again which I expected as the system just reboots when it attempts to run windows 7. SafeMode etc does the same.

The guy runs various accounts software but he needs to be in the programs to backup his work which the idiot hasn't done in 2-months. Its not like going into a folder and drag and drop doc/xls files to a backup drive.

Is there a way of running the windows environment from the drive to allow him to run these packages? What about a VM?

Any suggestions would be grateful.
 
Safe mode no good?

You could possibly try Disk2vhd to create a virtual hard drive clone of the physical disk from your mate's PC and run it in Virtual Box. I had to do this some time ago for an trophy shop/engraver who was running Windows 98 (non SE!) up until early this year. Worked fine for the purpose

Hook his hard drive up to another PC and let Disk2vhd do it's thing. Create a VM with OS appropriate settings in Virtual Box and use the VHD file created by the app as the bootable disk. You have a less than 50% chance of this working IMO :p

If it is Windows 7 or Vista you can try Audit mode to generalise the install (removing most if not all third party drivers) which will greatly increase your chances of getting the installation to play nicely with Virtual Box or even the actual machine with new motherboard.

In either case I'd strongly recommend creating a clone of the disk and trying to fix that instead of his actual disk if possible

Edit: this isn't exactly my field and my advice is free, so treat it like something you heard down the pub :D
 
The OS needs to be generalised using sysprep, unfortunately you need to be able to boot into the OS to do so. I've managed to do this manually in the past (win XP) when confronted with exactly this problem but if he's willing to spend money Acronis have a restore to different hardware option which works perfectly.

Do as d_brennen says though, take an image first and work with the image, not the original files. That at least will give you room to screw up without losing anything.

Edit: Actually, this looks promising: http://www.dowdandassociates.com/content/howto-repair-windows-7™-install-after-replacing-motherboard
 
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I have taken an image using Disk2vhd on my Server 2008 machine but since I haven't played with VM's, I have to learn that bit now.

I have Acronic Home Edition and the Edition for Server 2008 so whats this 'retore to different hardware option'? I never spotted that option.
 
Antar Bolaeisk said:
The OS needs to be generalised using sysprep, unfortunately you need to be able to boot into the OS to do so. I've managed to do this manually in the past (win XP) when confronted with exactly this problem but if he's willing to spend money Acronis have a restore to different hardware option which works perfectly.

Do as d_brennen says though, take an image first and work with the image, not the original files. That at least will give you room to screw up without losing anything.

Edit: Actually, this looks promising: http://www.dowdandassociates.com/content/howto-repair-windows-7™-install-after-replacing-motherboard
Click to expand...

I should have said if he can get it booted in a VM, generalise it and try the new hardware :)

The link looks good as well :)
 
smoove said:
I do quite a lot of rebuilds, so I'm wondering how I can make this more successful, because when replacing a motherboard, having to re install everything is a PITA!

Especially if im doing a friends pc and they havent got a windows cd/key :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I've all but given up on that kind of help for friends. Try and educate them, if it's important, back it up or STFU if it goes missing :cool: Usually by the time you have a nonbooting OS, it's usually hardware failure of epic proportions or such a damaged OS that a rebuild is needed anyway just to get everything up and running :rolleyes:
 
Scream said:
I have taken an image using Disk2vhd on my Server 2008 machine but since I haven't played with VM's, I have to learn that bit now.

I have Acronic Home Edition and the Edition for Server 2008 so whats this 'retore to different hardware option'? I never spotted that option.
Click to expand...

You need to plus pack to get the restore to different hardware option. As mentioned above though, try and boot it from the .vhd, it might work.
 
:)I tried it in VM and it through up an error. I also tried the link Antar Bolaeisk suggested which still didn't work but a guide I will print out and keep as it might be useful again.

For all I know the windows installation was bucked from the mobo failure so I might have been wasting my time. I am currently sticking Windows 7 back on as the guy is ringing and texting every hour. I have a clone of the drive so I might try the acronis suggestion.

Anyhow, I have learnt quite a bit about VM's so I have gotten some good out of it and I'll play with them once this machine is fixed and kicked back to the idiot to re-do the work he has lost.
 
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