Ok, click here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q249694.
This MS knowledge base article is called "How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware". This is the key document that you need for Win2K. Note the following section: If the computer does not restart after restoration because of HAL mismatches, perform an in-place installation to make repairs. To do this: Restart the computer from the installation media. On the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press ENTER as if performing a new installation. When the licensing screen appears, accept the licensing agreement. Setup will then search for previous installations to repair. When the installation that is damaged is found, press R to repair the selected installation. Setup re-enumerates your computer's hardware (including HAL) and performs an in-place upgrade while maintaining your programs and user settings. This also refreshes the %SystemRoot%\Repair folder with accurate information that you can use for typical repairs if they are required in the future. You see the type of motherboard doesn't even matter. Yes, the document talks about migrating and not DR'ing. But when you go through all the steps you will see that YOU CAN restore Win2K and NT4.0 to dissimilar hardware. The trick is knowing how to run repair process on the reboot after the system object restore. I have done it. It does work. Many people are weighing in on this and that is great but if you haven't done it then please don't say it can't be done. Simply say you haven't done it. Kyle -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Nicholas Cassimatis Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: NT restore to different hardware Having DR recovered my share of NT boxes, I'll throw in my $0.02 worth here. The NT/W2K/XP(/Win9x) registry has entries/pointers/references/who-knows-what that refer to all kinds of things on the local machine. Including all installed software, user accounts, and hardware. To BMR a client, the target machine needs to be "Very Similar" to the source. Anything too different and Windows won't come up. Copy the registry, in whole, from a Compaq to a HP server (and do it in a BMR style, without the system up), and see what happens. Try it with AIX (or other Unix) - just reload your mksysb on a different machine, and see if the ODM lets you come up clean. Try a Mac - take the drive from one series machine and drop it in another one - same problem (Try that with an Amiga, if you have one, and it works up to the 4000, but that's a different story...). AIX has a nice trick where you can reload the mksysb, also having the AIX install CD in the drive, and have it go get what it needs to come up, but that's build into the OS. Windows doesn't have anything like that at this point. BMR restore to unlike hardware is hard, but not impossible. You need to be careful what you bring down and apply to the registry, you need to practice your plan, then you need to practice it again, and again, and again. I learn something new on every DR Test I attend, because things are always changing. Nick Cassimatis Today is the tomorrow of yesterday.