Bare-Metal Restore for Slipstreamed Installations

Question

We need software to have a function for prebuilding the HAL before installation of Windows to dissimilar hardware. I figure there's some way to do something similar to slipstreamed installations, but I've never done one, so I'm not sure where to start.

Solution

We can offer two solutions for this issue.

Solution 1

1. Restore Bare-Metal on a VMware machine.
   You need to perform the following steps even if you continue to use VMware, or if you will move it to another physical machine.
2. Run VMware Converter to move the system either to a physical machine or another VMware. When you clone, you can use VMware Converter to change name, reset SID, etc.
   Notice: You always have to do this since Sysprep needs to be run to kill some parts of the registry for hardware items.
3. During the VMware Converter process, it runs Sysprep.
   Note: Requirement is Virtual Center.
4. When this process is complete, everything is running.

This is the best workaround we have found. It works for Windows 2003 and 2008. But Windows 2008 is much smarter, Microsoft has put some effort in getting Windows 2008 to notice when hardware changes were made at boot time without killing "blue screen".

Solution 2

Some customers have had great success simply running a Windows "Repair Install" after restoring to dissimilar hardware. This takes care of loading all of the new drivers and other items for you. However, if the RAID controller and other items are not the same, it usually ends up not working.

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