> I had posted this thread over in the Vista deployment and imaging TechNet
> forums but was referred to these groups.
>
> Here's the link to my original thread and my original question-
>
> http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4218203&SiteID=17
>
> Hello all,
>
> *(see a few posts down for exact text from the book)
>
>
>
> In the MCITP Vista Client for Enterprise Technicians book by Tony Northrup
> and JC Mackin there's a side note that describes how using ImageX to capture
> a user's "old" workstation then applying that image to a Virtual PC (on a new
> workstation) would make migration to Vista easier. The logic beind this is
> that it would allow users to go back and reference their old workstations in
> case something didn't work. I thought this was one of the greatest ideas I've
> seen so I tried it myself.
>
>
>
> I captured my Vista Enterprise (x86) installation from my office workstation
> using ImageX then created a new Virtual PC on a different workstation. I
> booted into our WinPE environment with our WDS server and used DiskPart to
> create the primary partition, assign a drive letter, mark as active etc. I
> formatted it then used ImageX to apply the captured image from my "old"
> workstation.
>
>
>
> When the PC rebooted it stopped during the boot manager process and gave me
> the cannot find the "winload.exe" program. I looked around on the internet
> and figured out how to repair this using BCDEdit and set the correct paths. I
> rebooted again and got the Vista boot loader to actually run, but Vista still
> wouldn't boot. The problem was now loading cdrcdisk.sys which of course
> halted the boot process. I figure this has to do with the fact that the
> original workstation was installed on a SATA interface (which did not require
> a custom driver -Dimension 4700) and the VM disk is an ATA interface. Others
> on the internet suggested siabling USB devices but of course those options
> aren't available in a VM BIOS.
>
>
>
> Was JC Mackin just assuming this would work? Will Virtual PC allow a
> emulated SATA mode in future versions? Others using VMWare were able to edit
> the virtual hard disk directly and change the disk interface, but this isn't
> possible with Virtual PC. Does this only work with XP installations?
> Remember, I tried to capture a Vista installation.
>
>
> ----------TEXT FROM BOOK--------------
> Real World
>
> JC Mackin
>
>
>
> "Before upgrading user's computers to a new operating system, I typically
> spend some time with them locating their essential files so that I can back
> up these files before the upgrade. However, users do occasionally forget
> about important files stored in well-hidden locations, especially when they
> are used to accessing this data automatically through an application. So, to
> keep users happy after the upgrade, ideally, you should ensure that they have
> a way of accessing everything on their old old systems. You can certainly
> achieve this if you just backup their entire system in advance of the
> upgrade, and sometimes this is indeed the best solution. But what I prefer to
> do when I can is to back up only their user state and then replace the
> system's hard disk, moving the old one to an external enclosure that can be
> access directly if necessary.
>
>
>
> Now however, there's an even cooler way to let users have access to their
> old data. Microsoft's ImageX utility allows you to capture an image of the
> user's old system and then deploy that image anywhere-even inside a virtual
> machine. Users can then run the virtual machine in Virtual PC when they need
> to access something that wasn't backup up or even when-why not?-they're just
> feeling a little nostalgic for their old desktop
>
>
> Any ideas?

>I was able to get an XP capture working, but I had to go through a few hoops.
>
>Edit boot.ini to reference partition (1) because the original was on (2).
>
>Run the XP CD repair installation which ran me through Windows setup. This
>won't fly for a 70 comptuer environment.

> A tool like Acronis Universal Restore might mitigate this somewhat
> though.