OT: Cloning windows XP with dd

[Alan Dayley]

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Vaughn Treude wrote:
> 
> That's what I can't figure out!  I was thinking there might be some evil
> checksum or special code somewhere that the HP's BIOS might be checking
> before allowing it to boot.  But I will try recopying the MBR (or
> perhaps make a startup disk and try doing a FIXMBR from the recovery
> console.)

This applies to Windows 2000 drives but it may, or a version of it,
apply to Windows XP:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/incremental/sysprep11.asp

"...Sysprep for Windows 2000 is a simple utility that prepares a system
on a hard disk for duplication (or cloning) and customization. It does
not in itself perform the actual duplication of the master image onto
target machines (third-party utilities are required for this purpose),
but ensures that the security identifiers (SIDs) are unique for each
target system..."

Starting with Windows 2000, unique SIDs are embedded in the drive
somewhere and are generated or involved the hardware in the system at
the time of the install.  This ID(s) must be changed or set or whatever
for the drive to work with the image you copy.  The sysprep utility
mentioned in the link handles the SIDs for you.

YMMV. I have never imaged a Windows XP install in this way so I don't
really know if it applies in your case.  But it makes sense that it would.

Alan
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