Pem’s Tech Blog

Referencing my earlier post (here), I wanted to carry my boot drive back and forth between 2 copies of my desktop computer.  Rather than dealing with different hardware configs, I made it extra simple by just using a copy of the same hardware (same motherboard model, same graphics card model, same amount of RAM) on both.  So far, everything has worked…

A good bonus is that I’m using a 5.25” SATA enclosure, which goes in a standard CD/DVD disc drive slot.

The only real concern so far has been the Windows Activation notifications.  We’ll see later if it starts to give me problems.

Finally, it’s definitely possible that Windows 7 (and graphics drivers etc) may simply deal better with moving a boot drive to a more significantly different hardware configuration…  Or if not, there may be some work-around.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/02/17 (Wednesday, February 17, 2010) :: Operating System focused: Windows, Travel :: No Comments »

I want to have two copies of the same desktop (or workstation) computer hardware, minus the boot drive (which is also the drive with all the programs installed) (all other drives are irrelevant, since they are just data drives).  The exact same motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, with Windows 7.  I would like to use 1 boot drive for both computers.

I have computer-A at location-A (such as my home office), and computer-B at location-B (such as my work office, or it could be somewhere far away).  Let’s assume these two locations are in different states, via a full day plane ride.  Also, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be 3 locations.

I want to be able to take the boot drive out of computer-A, bring it on the plane, fly to location-B, and put it in computer-B.  Such that it is seamless and low-hassle to continue working on computer-B as if it is computer-A.  This would be a routine thing, not just once – if it’s my home and office computer, then it could easily be twice a day.  And a 3rd location could still be out of state.

My goal is that once this is setup, it will be very easy and painless.  Much more easy and painless than actually maintaining two copies of the computer…  Having to redo my program installs, copy svn/subversion diffs, redo svn checkouts, redo my configurations, etc.  I want this to be basically equivalent to if I had transported my entire huge powerful desktop computer on the plane.  Except I just shutdown computer-A, unplug the boot drive, take it to location-B, plug it into computer-B, and boot computer-B.  Simple, and no hassle.

In case anyone is wondering…  No, a laptop is not powerful enough.  No, I don’t just want the data files.

And I think I’d prefer to take the actual boot drive, rather than an external data drive with an image of the boot drive, because I think taking the boot drive sounds faster and simpler?

Some more focused questions:

1) Will it just work, since it’s two copies of the same hardware (motherboard, cpu, gpu)?  Could I just carry the boot drive (from computer-A, to computer-B) after a clean shutdown?  Or, do I need to use sysprep (or something) to generalize (Computer name, Security Identifier (SID), Driver Cache) each time?  Or Windows System Image Manager?  Or repair Windows from the DVD on the destination computer?

2) What hardware would affect this?  Just motherboard, CPU, GPU?  Is it okay if computer-B is missing some pieces, such as a Blu-ray drive on computer-A and no disc drive on computer-B?  Keep in mind, I want everything to just work, and all my stuff to be in full working order, including details like environment variables, registry keys, what SDK’s I have installed, my working copy of an svn code checkout, etc.

3) Any catches / gotchas to my idea?

4) Any specific hardware to make this easier?  I noticed that with some computers, the internal hard drives slide in/out very easy and tool-less.  Though with others, it’s kind of a pain.

I think these are the right answers:

1) It will just work.  Sysprep is only needed if you’re moving it to different hardware.  With sysprep, you could do the same thing, even if computer-A and computer-B were different hardware.  Windows repair would also work.

2) Yes, just the motherboard, cpu, and gpu matter.  The cpu just has to be compatible with the motherboard.  And the motherboard can be different, as long as it uses the same chipsets.

3) My biggest worry is that it will cause Windows activation – every single time I move the hard drive.  So if I move from computer-A to computer-B, then back to computer-A, that would be 2 activations?  Somewhere I read that you only get 5, after which you have to activate by phone?  Sounds potentially annoying…  And I wonder what, if anything, happens after 50 activations?  100 activations?

4) Probably just route the SATA and power cable outside of the case drive.  Maybe there’s an enclosure to help keep it stable and safe.

However, my confidence level is not yet 100%…  Two things similar are: (using sysprep for simple images with massive deployment) and (moving the system drive from an old computer to a new computer, just once, not repeatedly)…  But I was kind of surprised that it was not incredibly easy (via google search) to find other people already doing / trying what I described here.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/12/14 (Monday, December 14, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Windows, Travel :: 1 Comment »

One thing I think I was kind of wasting time on is worrying too much about what the tags should be, and whether each post should be exactly one tag vs. multiple tags (and if multiple tags meant my post wasn’t topic-focused enough, or that my tags weren’t good enough).  I think this is pretty OCD, and worrying about the tags too much is a waste of time.  So, rather than try to look too far ahead, I’ll just add some more tags as I go.

I tagged this post “Blogging”, and I also tagged it “Web” and “Travel”.

Web is just generally website stuff that I personally noticed.

Travel is from a tech/geek – minded perspective.  So, you want to use good online trip search tools, and have a good packing system with useful travel gadgets (and computer stuff)…  For me, this is more about access and productivity, or just about having more access for something to do during the trip.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/06/03 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009) :: Blogging, Travel, Web :: No Comments »