I've read quite a few posts that touched on this, but I still have some concerns.  My question is, are there any issues or caveats when restoring a Ghost image from an external drive to a new primary hard drive that is quite different (not just in size) from the original primary drive?  If my hard drive ever kicks the bucket, I'd like to know how much flexibility I have in choosing a replacement.

Thanks Brian, that's exactly what I meant by "quite different".   I gather then, that if my current drive is IDE, I must replace it with an IDE drive in order for the restore to work correctly.  Are there any differences between IDE drivers that could cause a problem on the restore?  Also, what would I need to do to be able to restore to a SATA drive, or is that even an option?

Thanks for the very helpful info.  I read the article about getting the SATA drivers loaded and realize that it would not work in a hard drive failure scenario.  The procedure requires a running IDE drive and a SATA drive, so I'd have to purchase a SATA drive beforehand, and install it while the system was still functional.

Well, at least I would have a choice between the latest and greatest IDE drives available at the time of the failure.

Thanks again Brian!

Yes, good point.  My motherboard does not have a SATA controller, so I would have to install a PCI card as well.  I agree, changing to SATA in the case of a drive failure would seem to be more trouble than it's worth.  I'll just wait until I get a new PC to jump on the SATA bandwagon.