XP Ghosting

[Modifidious]

Hey there everyone, I'm a n00b13 to the forums here. I'm trying to make work a lilttle easier for myself. I already accomplished making an unattended XP with all our shop progs and so on, got that part down. But ghosting saves time by taking out another 30-40min still!!! Especially if your unatteneded disc is more than 1gb. My question is this: Say I do a new install on a computer that has everything I need installed and all settings set. I also do a sys prep before I create the ghost image, this way it can be used universally on any XP machine. Will this work? I tried it making the new image off of a Dell the other day and tried ghosting over to a Sony laptop with no avail. I'm thinking it's maybe just a factor of creating the image on a non-Dell machine. IDK. Any suggestions or ideas would be GREATFULLY accepted. Thanks in advace.

[LarryAllen]

I have had limited succes in accomplishing what you are suggesting - sometimes it will work if the machine you are creating the ghost image on is absolutely stripped of ancillary hardware and the motherboards are the same manufacturer. I have not had luck ghosting a DFI mobo install to an MSI mobo machine.

[TheFlash428]

Yeah, they'll need to have pretty similar hardware. Ususally the best way to accomplish this is to use the oldest computer you can get your hands on (that will run XP) and make sure you have as little hardware installed as possible before creating your " base image". You'll probably still have to load drivers once the image has been installed on target machines. For the most part, imaging hard drives really only works for cloning similar models of computers (IE same mother board and components)--for what you're suggesting, the Unattended CD is probably best.