Windows XP and Ghost (sysprep problem)

[flyingrhino]

Hi,

Only recently I discovered that sysprep is needed BEFORE a ghost is done of a Windows XP install (the image didn't run - sticks on the blue bars screen before login).

If anyone can help me out of this then plz help.

Anyway, how do I use sysprep on my XP, what option do I need to use for a simple ghost backup, and what do I do with the sysprep popup window after the image is restored ?

Thanks.

(Another annoyed XP user that prefers Linux)

[cpugeniusmv]

check this out:

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=115

[babarfloyd]

Hi,

Only recently I discovered that sysprep is needed BEFORE a ghost is done of a Windows XP install (the image didn't run - sticks on the blue bars screen before login).

You do not need to run Sysprep on XP before you ghost it to create a backup. All Sysprep does is put the OS back into it's preinstall state so you'll have to run through Setup again.

What you are describing is a different problem. It sounds like you ghosted 1 XP machine and you are trying to put the ghost image on a 2nd machine or the hardware changed quite a bit from the time you created the ghost image.

Correct?

[flyingrhino]

I returned the ghost to the same pc on a different hard disk.

[babarfloyd]

Hmmm....if the HD is the only different piece of hardware then it should have worked.

What version of Ghost? Are you using NTFS, FAT, FAT32? What was the original size of the OS partition and what is the size of it on the new HD?

[ptiusa]

I have had exactly the same experience attempting to Ghost an EIDE drive back to a SATA drive. Symantec tells me it's because XP sees this hardware array as [sort-of] two different computers, even though the process worked fine from the SATA drive to the EIDE drive. They suggested the use of MS sysprep.

There are various versions of sysprep. If you have XP with Service Pack 1, the XPSP1 version can be found on the Microsoft support site. The plain XP version is on the XP installation CD.

I tried using sysprep, but ran into the same sticks-at-blue-screen problem. I am doing more searching about how to use sysprep for this purpose.