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urban Quote:However, am I correct in thinking that I would first require a version of Ghost on the new machine, and this would be overwritten with the restored partition?
You appear to be assuming the *new machine* already has some version of Windows already up and running--and not a *bare metal* replacement with no OS installed or running. You can not use Ghost on your present machine to restore your backup to that machine either--you must first boot from the Ghost installation disc and load the Ghost Recovery Environment to restore a backup image of the OS partition to the *original* machine.
You can restore your system's backup image to a separate HDD on your current machine without booting to the Recovery Environment--and then transfer that HDD to the *new machine*. Or, if the *new machine* has a Windows OS already running--you could install Ghost on that machine and then restore the image to a separate HDD on the *new machine*--and then swap out HDDs. But, as Brian has said, you can not overwrite the OS that is running Ghost from within that OS--the Recovery Environment is running from RAM and the boot CD--not from the HDD installed on the system.
Quote:So far I have create a backup of my own computer, with the aim of testing how effective the back up would be should I need to start over on a different computer.
Testing is good! I would get a separate replacement HDD for your current system and test the restore process on your existing system from the Recovery Environment to get used to using it for recovery of the OS partition and/or whole HDD. Don't test on your current OS HDD unless you can afford to *loose* everything--if something goes wrong!
Once you're comfortable with that process on the existing system--then move on to testing a restore to a different machine. But, did you understand what Brian was saying:
Quote:Have you restored an image to another computer and dealt with a failure to boot because of incompatible storage controller drivers?
Windows is not very flexible when you transfer an existing installed system from one machine to another machine. The closer to *identical* as possible can reduce the potential issues. There are ways to do this, but usually it's not just a simple transfer of an image from the old to the new machine's HDD! Heck...one can sometimes have boot problems when restoring an image back to the original old machine (that's why I suggested doing the testing above to get your *feet wet* first !). So, if you run into issues--let us know--we *usually* can help out--but, unfortunately not *always*
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