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Hard drive VSN. (Read 10287 times)
bw41101
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Hard drive VSN.
Jan 18th, 2007 at 5:02pm
 
I've been using Ghost 2003 for quite a while and I must say it's the dogs B's. I've used it several times to back up my windows 2k system (to DVD) and (touch wood) never had an issue.

I've (now) switched to Windows XP Pro and wish to back up my system likewise. However I'm led to understand that XP uses the disk's volume serial number (VSN) as part of the registration process?

This being the case, does Ghost  backup the original VSN as well? Funny really as one takes it for granted that the clone is identical, but I've never considered whether the VSN was cloned along with the backup - never had to until now as previous versions of Windows didn't use the VSN.

I use (dare I say it) a Packard Bell system which has the added complication of Windows Activation via the system's BIOS. Anyway using the KISS approach, I always completely wipe the hard drive (to start with) and then clone to the drive with just the primary partition.

Am I likely to be successful or (do you think) that problems could be encountered? Has anyone else with a similar set of circumstances gone through this same process ?

I eagerly await your inputs.

Thanks and Regards

Chris
 
 
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Rad
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #1 - Jan 18th, 2007 at 5:20pm
 
i have used ghost 2003 to restore several wxp system drives, and never had a problem (rad touches wood).

yes, i also believe wxp uses the volume serial # as part of its reg deal, but changing that alone won't require a re-reg.

there are 10 items (i think) that wxp uses to determine if a significant system hardware change has been made, and only changing 1 of them shouldn't flag the reg-nazi's at ms.
 
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C Man
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #2 - Jan 18th, 2007 at 6:17pm
 
Rad wrote on Jan 18th, 2007 at 5:20pm:
there are 10 items (i think) that wxp uses to determine if a significant system hardware change has been made...

Here's a couple bookmarks I have that explain that.  They both say about the same thing.

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-200

http://www.technibble.com/windows-xp-activation-explained/
 
 
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bw41101
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #3 - Jan 19th, 2007 at 3:51am
 
Hi C Man, thanks for you input. I'm not particularly worried about the Windows Activation process as (on my kit) it's BIOS activated. I'm (primarily) concerned whether the Ghost clone will be identical when the system is re-installed on to the clean hard drive. I've done this on other Windows systems but not (as yet) on XP.

Anyway, my thanks to Rad also for his input. Anyone elses will also be welcomed.

Cheers and beers

Chris
 
 
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NightOwl
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #4 - Jan 19th, 2007 at 9:10am
 
bw41101

The Volume Serial Number (VSN) is used for the WinXP activation process--you can find more info here:

Windows Product Activation (WPA)


Quote:
What hardware gets checked?
The WPA system checks ten categories of hardware:

Display Adapter
SCSI Adapter
IDE Adapter (effectively the motherboard)
Network Adapter (NIC) and its MAC Address
RAM Amount Range (i.e., 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc.)
Processor Type
Processor Serial Number
Hard Drive Device
Hard Drive Volume Serial Number (VSN)

CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM


The utility below can allow one to control the VSN if you need to:

VolumeID


I can't check until later, but I think Ghost preserves the VSN when cloning--I have a cloned HDD of a system I've been working on, but it will take me awhile before I can re-hook it up to check.

Quote:
a Packard Bell system which has the added complication of
Windows Activation via the system's BIOS

I'm afraid I don't understand what this reference means--it's not in the list of hardware items above!?
 

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bw41101
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #5 - Jan 19th, 2007 at 11:50am
 
Greetings NightOwl;

Basically on some Packard Bell's,  the operating system is BIOS locked, I.e. as far as the operating system's concerned it belongs to the machine. To clarify, my system was originally supplied as a WIN2k or XP pre installed machine, in the original case - Win 2K.

When I installed XP, the BIOS recognised the fact that XP was the alternative operating system and the WPA became active during the installation phase.

In essence it's an OEM thing. However, I didn't actually realise that until I checked how much time I had left until I needed to activate XP on my kit - when the system announced that WPA was active, the penny dropped. It'll be interesting to see whether this still works upon installing a Ghost clone of the original.

Cheers

Chris
 
 
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #6 - Jan 19th, 2007 at 5:16pm
 
well, let us know.

10 things, told ya.
 
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NightOwl
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Re: Hard drive VSN.
Reply #7 - Jan 20th, 2007 at 8:54am
 
bw41101

That's interesting about the Packard Bell systems being locked to the BIOS--I wonder if it's just the OEM OS that's locked to the system, as  opposed to the WinXP Activation being tied to that BIOS lock of the OS?  Of course with the motherboard and HDD controller being tied up in the whole process of WinXP Activation--it's probably hard to tell.

I looked at the two HDD's that I used to do a Ghost 2003 direct *disk-to-disk* clone and the VSN matched on all three HDD's.  So, *disk-to-disk* cloning maintains the VSN.  And I suspect that the VSN is also maintained if you do a *whole disk* to image, and then restore the image to a *whole disk*.

But, if you pre-partition a new HDD and then restore using an image-to-partition procedure--I suspect that Ghost will not alter the existing VSN from the pre-partitioning--I don't have a system setup to test that right now--but that's my best guess.

Having said the above, I suspect that the VSN does not exist until you *format* a partition--so if you just partition and do not format, then an *image-to-partition* procedure may create the same VSN as the original from which the image was made.

You could use that tool above to change it if the VSN does not come out as planned.

If you are simply restoring a backup image to the existing HDD that you created the image from--and you have not re-partitioned and/or re-formatted--then I expect the VSN to remain the same as well.
 

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