[Saxon]

Anyone who has VMware Workstation and Acronis Trueimage may be interested in this. By way of an experiment I loaded Acronis TI into the VMware virtual PC image I created and then proceeded to run ATI to make a disk image on an external hard disk, it worked. I then proceeded to mount this image with Acronis on my PC proper, it worked. The next step I haven't taken yet i.e. to use this image in a restore situation on a real PC.

I haven't taken the last step as yet as I don't have the spare time at the moment to complete the experiment, but as all has gone well so far, but if this works it at least means you could build up a PC image within VMware at your convenience and to your requirements while still being able to use your actual PC.

This may seem pointless to some but I just thought it would be of interest to those who own both programs and maybe would like to try it out for themselves. I will report back later when I've had the chance to actually implement the last step.

[JohnWill]

I've actually tried this same sort of experiment. I took a working machine and "prepared" it to be run on different hardware, then did an image with TI. I ran TI under VirtualPC and restored the image and successfully booted it.

[Saxon]

That's great news, so I can expect to transfer this image to a PC for real, yes? I thank you for your imput and correct me if I'm wrong but this kind of procedure isn't well known as far as I know. Did you have to do any final tweaks to get this to work or was it a case of success on first boot up on a real PC? If so I'm going to find this a very useful tool in 'getting the job done' so to speak. Thanks again for your input anyway, I greatly appreciate it.

[JohnWill]

It was "first boot success", but it is a sample of one.

[StumpedTechy]

How does this take into account drivers? I am wondering because don't these virtual machine programs use a specific driver set in order to operate? I mean I know on Microsoft virtual machine if I load it I can't game simply because it only had 2d rendering on a standard adapter it does not have my machines adapter in use. So if I image it and then load it on my true machine how does this driver get on?

Just wondering because I would hate to build an image then have to load the drivers to find out the dirvers loaded after the fact cause a problem with the installed image programs.

In all sounds like it would be a good thing to utilize tho.

[JohnWill]

Basically, you need to do a preparation for the target environment. The way I use is one that was posted on TSG some time back.

(from crjdriver in http://forums.techguy.org)

To swap mb without reinstalling. During this process, DO NOT reboot. Just tell it later.

1 Uninstall any software that is dependent on the old board. This would be things like onboard sound driver, onboard nic driver, monitoring software, etc.

2 Go to device manager and select IDE / ATA / ATAPI controller. Right click on the primary and select update driver. Have the wizard "show all compatible" so you can choose from a list. Select standard ide controller driver. Repeat for the secondary. Note this is VERY important if you want the system to boot. While in DM, remove floppy controller, usb controller, and anything dependent on the old board. If you miss one here, no big deal. The important thing is the ide controller.

3 Disable [not uninstall] any anti-virus software.

4 Now shutdown and do the swap.

5 Restart the system and enter the bios. Set time, date, and check your temps. If all looks good, save settings and restart. Windows will load any drivers that it has native driver support for. Now load your new chipset / mb drivers; reboot when prompted. Next load any other drivers as necessary; this would be onboard sound, nic, raid drivers.

6 Reinstall your video driver. Reboot when prompted.

7 Check DM for any yellow marks and or unknown devices.

You could also use SYSPREP to get things ready.