A few questions about cloning/imaging...

[EQTitan]

What i'd like to do is be able to install a system once OS/drivers (mostly all the same hardware). Then clone the drive or image the drive to a clone/image pc, so that if that model I ever have a client with the exact same model I can just clone/recover the clone/image I have of that model so that way my client does not have to wait 1/2hrs for me to format and reinstall the software.

I currently have a spare PC running XP Pro sp3 with a 500GB hdd that is only for cloning/imaging. I was using ghost32.exe (norton 8.5), and a usb to IDE/SATA cable to image the drives and then dump the image to a new drive or If I have multiple system just image all the systems 1 at a time instead of installing windows manually on each one. It worked at first but then the drives stopped booting into windows after dumping the images to the new drives.

I guess i'm looking for a little help to set this up 'properly' and efficiently. thanks

 

[Intexity]

how often do you get the EXACT computer needing the exact setup? the slightest change in hardware will make this an impossible task. have a merry christmas.

 

[EQTitan]

I buy in bulk so I get it quite often...example I just got in a lot of (50) HP D530's all the same hardware.

 

[bruceb]

You do know, that unless you have a Volume License for both the OS and for any installed programs, that you would need to make the Image using Sysprep first.
Then input the required license keys for each product.

 

[EQTitan]

Or you can you Microsoft's keytool.

 

[Intexity]

seems like alot of wear and tear on the hard drive your using to make all these clones. would look over the boot.ini files to see if something isn't being messed with. and definitely would do some kind of disk utility scan on the worker hard drive.
hope this helps
edit-so cloning the same drive would use the same validation code on each computer?? hmmmm and what is this keytool? a way to input a different validation code on each computer?