preface: i'm not an IT professional, please pardon any improper verbiage. there are 7 computers at my office (plus a server). i have one set up perfectly - it has all the programs everyone needs and [B]only[/B] the programs everyone needs via clean/fresh installation; program preferences properly set; all the latest drivers in good order; clean/fresh os install, etc. the rest are in various stages of disaster, although most function just enough to let each respective user perform his/her job. i need to take the "settings" from it and replicate on each of the others. hangup #1: each has very different hardware set ups. hangup #2. four (maybe five) do not have functioning CD drives. hangup #3: we have (virtually) no original disks or documentation on anything we're using (although it's all legal), in regard to both software and hardware. hangup #4: two of the machines have software packages (including data files/history/records) that are going to go back on only those two (the bookkeeper has Simply Accounting, and the shipping department station has UPS Online Worldship). I need to have this done tonight, so purchasing anything is pretty much out of the question. I've managed to muck my way through things like this before, and I've heard that cloning the drive is probably what I need to do. However, from what I understand about cloning, it will create problems in regard to hardware (since it will copy the drivers for the hardware I have on the one good set up, which doesn't have the same hardware as the others) - and that still leaves me with no obvious way to get/keep the information from the UPS and Simply Accounting software. Is there a way to leave drivers for specific hardware peripherals out of the cloning process? And if so, will that preserve the existing drivers - remember, I have no discs or documentation, and I don't even know the manufacturer on most of the stuff so if i lost the drivers to a particular network card, for example, I'd be pretty well screwed. Each of the computers is networked, and I can copy whatever information needed to the server and then back down to any of the individual machines. I've tried to do just that with the Simply Accounting program, and copy it to the "good" machine (then my plan was to clone this HD, stick it in her machine, remove the program from this one, then do the other 5 clones), however running the program on this machine didn't exactly 'work' (it ran, but there was trouble retrieving her data). Are there files besides those in the Program Files directory that I need to copy to have software packages function properly on a new/different computer? I very much appreciate all the gratis time you gentlemen (and -women) put in on these boards, and offer sincere and heartfelt thanks in advance for any guidance you might be able to offer, regardless of the outcome. Michael

Hi I'm not an IT anything either, but cloning one system to another that has different hardware, would work in a roundabout fashion. However you would spend some time with the MS disk and drivers getting it right. Some software packages are difficult to migrate to another system as some method has been deployed to stop software copying. If you have a high speed internet connection getting drivers shouldn't be much of a problem. However I would tackle your situation differently. The other computers run "just enough" but are in a state of disaster. This means the system is functioning but bogged down? You could just "clean" them up tonight, and this should result in a better performance. You have already used disk cleanup? Has anytime anyone uses defrag (assuming Fat32) it wants to spend days? Defrag doesn't result much better performance? Are there a large number of files in the MY computer My favorites My whatever folders? If so copy them to a different folder. Windows is said to bog down if too many files are in these folders. Not sure about any system that uses NTFS eg XP. OK if you have tried the above, then you could try running diagnostics start the drive out with a clean slate. For Fat32 systems you could copy the entire drive, to another drive using windows explorers copy/paste. The drive to be copied needs to set as slave. The master needs to be much bigger to store the copied drive. Create a folder on the larger drive and copy all of original drive [c: - now called D] in one hit. If there is another partition [was D: now E:] copy it to another folder (You may need to get a large drive tonight and tranfer 98 os to it. Method is described latter on) Now the original drive/s have been copied to the larger drive, place original as the master and single, run it though diagnostics, use read/write test if available. It takes time. Now choose to zero or low level format the drive, and then finally prime/ready the drive.[if you had 2/more partitions in the original you will need to partition so each folder can be placed back] (you could just use a system disk with fdisk and format copied onto it - first fdisk then format.) FINALLY place the clean/tested drive back in as slave with the larger drive as master. Copy the original contents back to the clean drive. Explorer will find a couple of files already exist - do you want to overwrite them - YES to all. You want back all the original files. Now don't go deleting the folder/s on the larger drive where you placed the original contents - yet. Halt the system, place the original drive as master and single and boot up. Does the system perform much better or still about the same. If not then, some other problems. Make sure you are happy the original drive is functioning correctly - take time to confirm all is working. You can now repeat the procedure with another drive. Keep the larger drive on the original computer that it was set up on. It will get quicker from this point on as you won't be pulling this larger drive out whilst another drive is running as master during diagnostics. Test with diagnostics, each drive in the computer it is going to run in, as it will show if the motherboard controller is up to scratch as well ..........The latter on bit............ If you are in a urban area there will be after hours sales in one of the stores or a computer tech (24 hrs) that sells hard drives (New with reciept). If you can, get 2 spare drives that are much larger, Western Digital is a safe bet. Get cd roms or cdrw as well, They're very cheap now. If you need to check will your purchasing deptartment first - do, confirm it with some one with a bit of authority. Then: You will need the hard disk diagnostics/Utilities from the hard drive manufactures. [Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate, IBM/Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung] Ok ready/prime the new drive, with it in a system as master with the utility from the drives manufacturer. (oh you need working floppy drive and disks.) Then after priming, you can migrate the system from one drive to the new one using the new drives (manufacturer) migrate tool. As a test put this new drive back into the same computer the old drive came out of. Boot it up and see if the system runs. It should. Now you have the larger drive with 98 for the copy/paste procedure. My apologies for the long winded explanation, but it is quite a tricky procedure.