Restore image to dissimilar hardware: Extreme4

[Hans Peter Guttmann]

Basic specs:
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
i7-2700K Sandy Bridge 3.5GHz (not overclocked)
Kingston HyperX 8GB DDR3 1600

Windows 8 Pro x64
EaseUS Workstation 5.3


I would like to do a 'Restore image to dissimilar hardware' using EaseUS Workstation 5.3 on Windows 8 Pro x64. The Windows 8 system will be moving onto the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 from an Intel 775 system, Q6600 on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L.

The EaseUS Workstation 5.3 WinPE recovery disc provides for restores to dissimilar hardware. But it will halt the process when detecting the new hardware (motherboard) and require appropriate drivers. In this case I believe that would be the Z77 chipset drivers for the Extreme4.

I have downloaded the 'Intel INF driver ver 9.3.0.1025' and am assuming that the relevant drivers + infs are in the 'All' or 'WIN7' subfolders.

(Once 8 has successfully booted on the new hardware further driver updates & installations can proceed.)

If a member could confirm these details and point me to the correct subfolder and the necessary files for x64 Windows I would be most grateful.

[MarkJohnson]

I think you should be in the EaseUS forums for these questions.

You may want to look into this restoring to dissimilar hardware as it is against MS policy and may not do exactly what you want.

That being said, in the past I have taken hard drives from one intel platform to different intel platform and have it work fine, but sometimes not. You just need to pre-download the new drivers to your system as you'll probably lose internet and I usually just download them all.

Luck
-=Mark=-

[Hans Peter Guttmann]

Thank you, MarkJohson for your reply. I was thinking that the primary issue in this process is, as you observed, pre-downloading drivers. Although I have collected all the relevant drivers sets for the Extreme4 and saved them to a separate drive, one set in particular usually must be substituted in Windows' Hardware Abstraction Layer during the Recovery. And that is the driver that allows Windows to enable the Chipset Controller for hard drives.

As soon as Windows loads, all other driver installations and updates can proceed.

Since this particular driver is distributed by ASRock for their motherboards it seemed logical to come here.

[synack]

Thank you, MarkJohson for your reply. I was thinking that the primary issue in this process is, as you observed, pre-downloading drivers. Although I have collected all the relevant drivers sets for the Extreme4 and saved them to a separate drive, one set in particular usually must be substituted in Windows' Hardware Abstraction Layer during the Recovery. And that is the driver that allows Windows to enable the Chipset Controller for hard drives.

As soon as Windows loads, all other driver installations and updates can proceed.

Since this particular driver is distributed by ASRock for their motherboards it seemed logical to come here.

Most times windows already has enough to boot on just about any hardware. Using a restore disk might be a little excessive, I bet just plugging the drive in will work fine.
The biggest problem tends to be drive controllers, but if your boot/system drive is connected to the intel SATA, you should be fine. You may need to re-license windows 8 however. it's pretty particular about that...