First of all - this is NOT a request for assistance. Instead, it is what I hope will be positive news and encouragement to any readers of this very helpful forum who, like me, have long wondered whether it really is possible to backup a computer, and restore that backup to a completely different computer.
I have a customer who uses a 5 year old Dell Precision M90 Workstation Laptop, running XP Pro, to operate his professional tax service business. It doesn't require much effort to imagine the crunch he's in right now. Well, yesterday, he brought the laptop in with 9 years of tax software, customer records, emails, etc., residing on the machine's original hard drive, which had just refused to boot. I determined the hard drive had to be replaced. The customer said he could not wait the 48 hours it would take to get a replacement hard drive. Using Acronis True Image 2010, with Plus Pack (Universal Restore), I made a full backup of the non-booting, but still accessible hard drive. I happened to have a refurbished Dell 2400 Celeron- powered 6 or 7 year old desktop which was available. I stored the desktop's original drivers on a folder on the same external hard drive I had used for backing up the inoperative laptop; and, within a couple of hours, using Acronis' Universal Restore capability, had a working copy of the laptop's installation on the old Dell 2400's vintage, but thoroughly checked out, hard drive. Everything worked perfectly, and my customer will be using the replacement machine for as long as necessary to get the laptop up and running.
If I had not personally participated in this process, I would not have believed it possible. I have made many, many Acronis backups; and restored many of those backups to the same machines, frequently using new hard drives; but never from one computer to a completely different hardware platform.
I hope this will serve as a useful approach to consider for any of you out there who, like me, may have had doubts about its feasibility.
