imaging software that work on different hardwares

There is no specific software for doing that. Cloning software, like Norton Ghost, just make a raw copy of harddisks or partitions. Each operating system will behave in its own way when started on diferent hardware.

If you are working with Windows, run sysprep (search in Microsoft Download Center for it) before creating your disk image.

There is a technique that works fine for Windows (2000 at least):

1) Install your operating system
2) Install your applications
3) Run Windows setup again from within Windows
4) When system restarts, do not let it boot. Create the disk image now.
5) Clone your disk and let windows boot. It will recognize the differences.

I think Windows XP will recognize new hardware without any problems after clonning. Have you tried it?

Dont forget to run sysprep if your machine is going to be part of a Windows domain.

Acronis (http://www.acronis.com/) do what you want (make a ghost image and is able
to restore to dissimilar hardware). It´s paid.

Guys you cant do this.  

Acronis is some great imaging software....


However if you are using windows XP or above, you wont be able to do this without reactivating your product.   They keep track of what hardware you have and major changes forces you to re activate.  

There is even a chance that your image wont boot at all since the hardware is so different.  The drivers can be bypassed in safe mode but its a hassle to get everything working just right from what you are wanting to do...


Hope this helps, and good luck.  Just be careful with your data and know that this is about a 50/50 shot of working / crashing

I am looking at something besides Acronis. I need to clone images on Windows and Linux machines.

As said above, you can use any imaging software, and acronis is very capable of imaging windoze and linux system. But again, the drivers and also installed versions of the OS can be so different on different hardware, that it's not worth the try because after restoring an image you'll need at least as much time changing and tweaking settings as if you had installed manually in the first place. Linux, if it doesn't have a specialy built kernel, is more likely to run out of the box, but it will have some problems mainly with newer SATA controllers. Knoppix will work as is on almost any hardware. For windooz you should be looking at an unattended installation method which, once setup properly, can save a lot of time

http://unattended.sourceforge.net
http://nliteos.com

 hi Jeffrey
I'm not sure what exactly are u looking for but anyway,
For cloning of Windows system  Acronis Worstation will suite u.
it solves the main problem that arises while Windows is set on to new PC (Os will ask for  drivers, TI workstation itself
contains different types of drivers and selects the proper one automatically).
Now, if u need to operate with Linux system from the Linux one there are different free utilities (search the proper one in google).

Acronis has some additional inteligence besides simply cloning the disk image that allows to restore
on diferent hardwares. Read the website.

Hello guys,
Have you heard about Universal restore from Acronis? [http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/]
I have several computers in a workstation, so I had to have the same systgem conditiom on all my PCs. BTW hardware was different, Acronis could restore one image on every PC clearly.