WinXP: Possible to use Sysprep to use images between Intel and AMD systems?

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: JEDI
i made a ghost image of my p3 machine, then tried sysprep /-bmsd. it populated the sysprep.inf file.

i moved the hard drive to my amd sempron system. it didnt even get to the Windows screen. The computer would automatically reboot when i tried to load agp440.sys 🙁

what is that file? and anyway around it?

EDIT:
ahh.. agp440.sys is for video.

my p3 has a geforce4 4200.
my amd sempron has a pci video card-> ati radeon 32 pci

will try switching video cards

Most likely your HAL is different. Why not quickly install XP on the Sempron and look at what HAL it's using? 🙂 That would give you a fast and definite answer to all of this, with no guessing involved.

ok, i renamed the agp440.sys and it stopped at the next driver. i renamed that and all other drivers it stopped at. then i got to fastfat.sys. i renamed it, and gave me an error msg saying it couldnt proceed 🙁

on my p3 system, under device manager/computer, it only says ACPI PC.

Is that the HAL? If not, what should I look for?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: JEDI

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: JEDI
i made a ghost image of my p3 machine, then tried sysprep /-bmsd. it populated the sysprep.inf file.

i moved the hard drive to my amd sempron system. it didnt even get to the Windows screen. The computer would automatically reboot when i tried to load agp440.sys 🙁

what is that file? and anyway around it?

EDIT:
ahh.. agp440.sys is for video.

my p3 has a geforce4 4200.
my amd sempron has a pci video card-> ati radeon 32 pci

will try switching video cards

Most likely your HAL is different. Why not quickly install XP on the Sempron and look at what HAL it's using? 🙂 That would give you a fast and definite answer to all of this, with no guessing involved.

ok, i renamed the agp440.sys and it stopped at the next driver. i renamed that and all other drivers it stopped at. then i got to fastfat.sys. i renamed it, and gave me an error msg saying it couldnt proceed 🙁

on my p3 system, under device manager/computer, it only says ACPI PC.

Is that the HAL? If not, what should I look for?

That's the HAL. Does the one on the Semptron match that, when you quickly install XP onto it? If not, you're wasting your time trying to get it working. If so, you'll just need to change the HDD controller to PCI Standard before you shut it down and ghost it.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: JEDI

Most likely your HAL is different. Why not quickly install XP on the Sempron and look at what HAL it's using? 🙂 That would give you a fast and definite answer to all of this, with no guessing involved.

ok, i renamed the agp440.sys and it stopped at the next driver. i renamed that and all other drivers it stopped at. then i got to fastfat.sys. i renamed it, and gave me an error msg saying it couldnt proceed 🙁

on my p3 system, under device manager/computer, it only says ACPI PC.

Is that the HAL? If not, what should I look for?

That's the HAL. Does the one on the Semptron match that, when you quickly install XP onto it? If not, you're wasting your time trying to get it working. If so, you'll just need to change the HDD controller to PCI Standard before you shut it down and ghost it.

[/quote]

well, i deleted the hdd controller on the p3 system then i ghosted. and it didnt work on the sempron.

should i have switched it to pci standard instead?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: JEDI

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: JEDI

Most likely your HAL is different. Why not quickly install XP on the Sempron and look at what HAL it's using? 🙂 That would give you a fast and definite answer to all of this, with no guessing involved.

ok, i renamed the agp440.sys and it stopped at the next driver. i renamed that and all other drivers it stopped at. then i got to fastfat.sys. i renamed it, and gave me an error msg saying it couldnt proceed 🙁

on my p3 system, under device manager/computer, it only says ACPI PC.

Is that the HAL? If not, what should I look for?

That's the HAL. Does the one on the Semptron match that, when you quickly install XP onto it? If not, you're wasting your time trying to get it working. If so, you'll just need to change the HDD controller to PCI Standard before you shut it down and ghost it.

well, i deleted the hdd controller on the p3 system then i ghosted. and it didnt work on the sempron.

should i have switched it to pci standard instead?[/quote]

Yep, if the HAL is the same, that (selecting PCI Standard IDE Controller prior to your final shutdown) should let it boot. That's assuming the board you're using with the Sempron has IDE drivers that don't require you to hit F6 during the standard XP setup.

 

[JEDI]

ah........ IT WORKED!

i set it to standard PCI controller.

no sysprep or anything else.

my p3 image booted right up on my new amd system. then proceeded to find all the new hardware.

THX!!!!!!!!!!!!

So if it's this easy, why even use Sysprep if it's for your home machines?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: JEDI
ah........ IT WORKED!

i set it to standard PCI controller.

no sysprep or anything else.

my p3 image booted right up on my new amd system. then proceeded to find all the new hardware.

THX!!!!!!!!!!!!

So if it's this easy, why even use Sysprep if it's for your home machines?

I don't know why someone would. I asked you why you were using it on 12/17 at 1:16 PM. 🙂

 

[JEDI]

lol

next question:
i updated the image w/winxp sp2. now it wont ghost onto 2 cds. i now need 3 🙁 where are the tempory that i can get rid of to try to bring it down to 2 again?

(i need a 2nd cd case to hold 3 cd's. i rather have the image in just 1 cd case so i wont lose it.)

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: JEDI
lol

next question:
i updated the image w/winxp sp2. now it wont ghost onto 2 cds. i now need 3 🙁 where are the tempory that i can get rid of to try to bring it down to 2 again?

(i need a 2nd cd case to hold 3 cd's. i rather have the image in just 1 cd case so i wont lose it.)

1. Buy a DVD drive for $50.

Barring that, you can delete directories starting with $ in c:\windows (those are uninstall directories) but that's really not a very smart thing to do. You can delete all the temp files in c:\temp, c:\windows\temp, and places like that. You can delete profiles (c:\documents and settings\) of users you don't need. You can go in there and delete all kinds of temp files (from your own profile). Or just uninstall more stuff. And turn off restore points prior to Ghosting to save even more space.

Or boot into WinPE or Bart's PE Boot Disk prior to Ghosting and remove your swapfile and all of this stuff prior to Ghosting.

 

[JEDI]

what are restore points? what do they do ? and how do i turn it off?

my 3rd cd is only 100megs in size. that's probably 200megs uncompressed.

IE auto downloaded and installed winxp sp2. where is the install file, and where did it uncompress to? is it ok for me to delete them?

 

[atiyeh]

Originally posted by: hopejr
SysPrep was designed for systems with almost identical specs (ie different brands of burner won't make a difference), but as soon as it's a different chipset, CPU, or GPU, you're asking for trouble AFAIK.

ding ding ding we have a winner! sysprep is only for the machines that are very very identical, that means even down to the chipset.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: atiyeh

Originally posted by: hopejr
SysPrep was designed for systems with almost identical specs (ie different brands of burner won't make a difference), but as soon as it's a different chipset, CPU, or GPU, you're asking for trouble AFAIK.

ding ding ding we have a winner! sysprep is only for the machines that are very very identical, that means even down to the chipset.

I don't know why that myth continues to be propagated, but it's completely false, as this very thread proves. Please read up on Microsoft's extensive documentation on Sysprep. As of the 1998-esque NT version, that may have been at least marginally correct, but since 2001 or so that's been absolutely wrong.

The only limitation is the HAL. Everything else (meaning the hard disk controller) can be worked around very easily, as Jedi proved in this thread.