Restore a backup to same machine with new hardware

[Tracy Peressini]

Hi, I recently had a problem with a virus and in the process of cleaning it up corrupted many of the registry settings. In the intervening time my video card died, so I replaced it and added a new HDD and took an older smaller one out of my computer (neither the old one or the new one are boot disks). At this point my system is very unstable because of the corrupt registry settings, so would like to restore the image of the drive I made before the addition of the new video card and HDD (which is not the boot drive). The new video card is an Nvida, whereas the old one was ATI, so the backup will have the ATI drivers. I used Windows backup to create the image. My OS is Vista 32-bit.

The image is from a couple of months ago and since then I have created some new documents and installed a couple of new apps - so no major changes other than the video and HDD, so I'm guessing I will have to reinstall the apps and make backups of any new files I've have created since then and simply copy them over to the restored drive?

So my question is can I restore from the backup with the new hardware? If so, what kind of problems can I expect? When you restore the image does it reformat the boot drive? Or does it simply over write what is on that drive? If possible, I'd like to reformat the drive before restoring the image?

I'm not a novice user, but I'm not an expert either. So any info/help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dodger46]

Given that a clean install is probably your best course of action, and that Vista is a nightmare with all it's SPs and updates, have you considered Windows 8? You could install it on your new HDD and access the data from your old drives. Upgrade version can be had for around £45/$75... and it won't take all day to install!

 

[Tracy Peressini]

Given that a clean install is probably your best course of action, and that Vista is a nightmare with all it's SPs and updates, have you considered Windows 8? You could install it on your new HDD and access the data from your old drives. Upgrade version can be had for around £45/$75... and it won't take all day to install!

Thanks Dodger, I was hoping to avoid a clean install for the time being as I have quite a few programs that would have to be installed. If I were to upgrade, how do I upgrade to the NEW HDD? Can I upgrade from Vista32 to Windows8 (64)? I am running a quad core with 4 mb ram.

 

[dodger46]

Simply perform a clean install of Win 8 to your new drive. I usually use the method where you install Win 8 on to the new drive, then do a 'Refresh' install which activates Windows.

 

[Tracy Peressini]

Simply perform a clean install of Win 8 to your new drive. I usually use the method where you install Win 8 on to the new drive, then do a 'Refresh' install which activates Windows.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a "refresh install"?

 

[dodger46]

It's a new feature of Win 8 whereby you can refresh the Operating System without losing your data, useful if Windows is misbehaving...it is accessed by holding down the shift key and selecting 'restart'.
(Major disadvantage of Win 8, you won't have time to make a cup of tea between pressing the power button and arriving at the Start Screen, it's too fast...)

 

[hang-the-9]

Since you are going to install it on a new drive, why not just try it and see if it works?

Your setup will probably just default to VGA drivers till you install the new drives, and a restore of the image will replace anything that is on the drive currently when you restore it.

From what you wrote though it's a bit confusing WHAT you are restoring, the boot drive, or just some secondary storage drive? You talk about them as they were different things.