Am perplexed on this Saturday night, and looking for expert opinions. I have a single computer (Win 7) that I am going to be upgrading to a new motherboard, an Asus Z170. This move is prompted by both USB 3 support and Windows 10, which is inevitable. Have already upgraded the graphics card (970) and Blue Ray player.
Currently running a SSD with Windows 7, but of course Windows 7 does not have USB 3 support. My thought was to transfer my hard drives, power supply, DVD player, and graphics card to a Z170 machine. This may or may not be possible by mere mortals, as Windows 7 does not support USB 3. Have heard of the Paragon Adaptive Restore program to help delete old drivers and get new ones installed, but I don't believe this would work with an upgrade to a motherboard with USB 3 support. Certainly not anticipated in 2010.
So, my choices (I think) are to upgrade to a new Z170 motherboard using Windows 7, perhaps uploading some sort of USB 3 support first, and then upgrading to Windows 10. While this could save me $$ from a Windows 10 license, it is not clear to me how to add USB 3 support to Windows 7. The motherboard CD? I don't think Windows 7 could find this on its own. For that matter, it appears my USB keyboard / mouse won't work until I get the USB 3 drivers. Web searches this evening got me even more confused.
Alternatively, I could upgrade to Windows 10 on my computer as is, and then see if I get charged for a new OS when I change to the new motherboard. Would be willing to pay for an upgraded license if that is what it takes.
Got the new motherboard ready to go, ready to make a move. At this point, it seems that I actually have to reformat my drive and start over, paying for a new Windows 10 license, and hoping my MS Office software keys still work on the reloads.
So....what say you? Continue to look for a USB 3 driver set for my existing machine, and then move the harddrive to the new motherboard? Or....update to Windows 10 now, and then move? Don't particularly want to wipe my SSD and start over, as I had to do that a year ago when my primary drive failed. Could if I had to, I guess.
History
I think many of us have had this question - how do I transfer my well-adjusted and smoothly running OSI tried to use 'Paragon Adaptive Restore 2010' but it doesn't recognize Windows 10, I have used it to fix the MBR (master boot record), didn't work either. Download the Windows 10 installation.
plus all applications to new hardware. Because normal attempts (normal to user's point of view) to move the HDD with OS from one PC to another and trying to boot from will result in BSOD. Usually such error looks as follows: STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICEMicrosoft techs provided article on this problem: BSOD
There are also ways to Sysprep and deploy the image to dissimilar hardware. But this is not a solution for a one shot server migration or a home task to move your old laptop configuration to your brand new machine. You need to be an advanced technical specialist to handle Sysprep.
Root of the problem
Currently we have two main players in the CPU competition: AMD and Intel. With temporary success they reach leading positions one by one providing us better performance, better productivity and acceptable prices for their hardware.If you have an Intel based machine and decide to got to AMD or vice-versa you have a big dilemma - whether to reinstall OS from scratch or migrate current configuration to the new hardware. This is because of drivers problems. Drivers for AMD will not fit Intel, nor Intel drivers for AMD. Same for RAID or network controllers. The lack of driver compatibility creates complications for all of us.
Spheres of use
For business solutions this solution is even more acute - regardless of whether we are migrating because of hardware failure, RAID controller exchange, migrations of old servers to new monsters with less stop time and efforts, etc.All of the same problems of dissimilar hardware migration are faced by the home user - but they tend to be a single individual trying to deal with all of the same problems. The quicker the hardware and software demands develop the faster we change hardware. And we all need something intuitive to help us here.
What tools can do migration
All these requirements are fulfilled by the P2P (physical to physical) feature which is currently offered by many vendors. Some of them are:Hardware Independent Restore by Symantec, Universal Restore by Acronis and Adaptive Restore by Paragon Software.
The first two brands are well known and well marketed, but I have been testing the products from a new player in this competition - Paragon Software
With its new version of products such as Backup & Recovery and Hard Disk Manager Paragon announced Adaptive Restore (available in P2P Adjust OS Wizard) functionality in these products.
For a newbie in backup & recovery process these terms could sound strange and frightening but Adaptive Restore makes the work of migration as easy as possible.
The feature itself is designed as a single and understandable wizard that performs the necessary steps in a highly intuitive way. The most attractive thing is that Paragon did not stop the development by this release. Improvements are going on and the feature is going to be as polished as possible.
Paragon Adaptive Restore
Let us have a close look on the process of Adaptive Restore performed via P2P Adjust OS Wizard:First of all one should know that P2P Adjust OS Wizard is available in both installed copy of Backup & Recovery or Hard Disk Manager and Microsoft WinPE based Advanced Recovery CD. It is the same wizard but the one you run from WinPE Recovery CD is very useful.
Once you backup the existing system you can boot the new hardware from WinPE Recovery CD with no fear of missing drivers. Even if Microsoft forgot to add support of your hardware to the WinPE package, the Add Driver tool inside WinPE will let you load the driver(s) for better hardware detection. There is no need for slipstreaming.
As backup restore is done apply Adjust OS to system.
Step by step:
Load drivers if needed
Restore from backup image if backuprestore process of migration is used
Install chipset or RAID controller diver if needed
How it works:
Adjust OS. This will leave generic device drivers only.Upload Driver action lets you uploadinstall drivers for your new hardware (chipset or controller) without booting into Windows. Yes, drivers are installed in WinPE Environment. And all done by wizard. Just point it to driver repository (it can be your internal drive, USB drive or driver CD that came with motherboard or controller).
Apply changes and restart to Windows. You could have to install drivers for video and audio if completely dissimilar hardware is used. But this is not a problem once you are in Windows.
The benefit or this feature is that you can boot from WinPE and apply P2P Adjust OS in cases when you copied/cloned HDD, changed controller or motherboard. Backup & restore is not necessary anymore if you simply move HDD to different PC with dissimilar hardware.
I did perform various tests on test and live machines including production servers. Following migrations were done:
Migration from Intel based Lenovo R61 laptop to AMD Turion 64 x2 laptops
Migration from AMD Phenom II X4 940 based machine to Intel Core i7 950 machine
Migration from various Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad machines to AMD and verse
Migration of physical machines to virtual machine via P2P Adjust changes to image
These are live and true stress tests performed with Windows 2000, Windows XP (32 & 64bits), Windows 2003 (32 & 64bits), Windows Vista (32 & 64bits), Windows 2008(R2)/2012/2012R2, Windows 7/8/8.1/10 OS of both x32 and x64 bits.
Main aim of the tests was proving if the advertised feature works as it should. And my conclusion - yes
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it worksParagon Adaptive Restore Download
.And its price is attractive as this functionality of Adaptive Restore is included in main product. No additional software and payment are required. Just download the package of Paragon Advanced Recovery CD based on WinPE which is part of Backup & Recovery and Hard Disk Manager product line. And you are ready to migrate.
Backup & Recovery Home for personal use
Hard Disk Manager Business Edition for business
Paragon Adaptive Restore Download
Other vendors who offer dissimilar hardware functionality:Symantec Backup Exec 2010