SYSPrep question with new system

[Brutus04]

I am building a new Intel system (E2180/Abit IP35/Kingston RAM) and would like to use my existing system SATA I HDD. Will SYSPrep and/or Acronis allow me to boot from my existing HDD?
Any first hand knowledge appreciated...Thanks!

 

[corkyg]

Probably not. A different mobo and chipset normally will give you a BSOD. Boot from the OS CD and try a repair install. If that fails - you are most likely faced with a clean install.

 

[Brutus04]

Thanks a lot corkyg!

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Brutus04
I am building a new Intel system (E2180/Abit IP35/Kingston RAM) and would like to use my existing system SATA I HDD. Will SYSPrep and/or Acronis allow me to boot from my existing HDD?
Any first hand knowledge appreciated...Thanks!

Sysprep is made for enterprise deployments, not for doing a one-off like what you need.

Acronis is for doing an exact image - again not what you need.

You need to find the thread on AT where I (and others) wrote up details on how to fix this, but the gist of it is that you need to do a few things:
1. Confirm the HAL of the old and new boards is the same.
2. Confirm that the new board will boot from the same disk controller as the old board, or that you can install the new board's IDE controller into Windows while still booted with the old board, or that the new board will boot with a generic PCI IDE Controller. (If it will boot and install Windows from a normal XP CD without F6'ing for drivers, the third option will usually work.)

If you can get good answers to the above two questions you can do as you ask.

If you can't, there's always the option of an XP Repair Install (google it) which will also fix this and preserve your settings, but not in nearly as clean of a manner and not nearly as quickly.