You said it was supplied by Emachines, even it wasn't a restore CD, even if
it was identical to a retail CD, if you didn't have to activate this on your
system when you installed or installed and formatted, it's different from
the retail CD. That would make it an OEM and likely locked to that system
in some way.

I can only go back to what I told you in the first place a long time ago,
I've never tried this scenario. It's one thing to image a drive to say,
backup a partition, or have two hard drives installed on the system, install
the OS to one and then image it to the other and quite another issue to
install XP, create an image and then place that image on a hard drive the
setup never saw in the first place.

I'm not saying it can't be done or hasn't been done but from everything
you've told me, it appears XP's anti-piracy scheme is the issue. There may
be others who have done this, if they have, then I'm wrong and it may have
something to do with a peculiarity with your setup, an issue with the image
in the first place or something else of which I have no idea.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
Reply inline:

The XP Pro CD I have is not a Restore CD....it is a genuine
Install CD. I know, because I installed from it. However,
"backing up all data" is the reason for all of these
machinations. I have a few dozen 'folders' full of files and
data which are easy as pie (or pi) to copy to a CD, but
that's just the tip of the iceberg. What would be utterly
impossible to 'back up' is all of the software that's
contained in all that is in "Program Files" and the Registry.

I still say that, reading its literature, Drive Image was
designed to do exactly what I'm trying to do. But it doesn't.
And Power Quest, now Symantec, is almost impossible to get
questions to, much less get answers from. I'm living with
an Error Message in Norton System Works because, to repair
it, just to fully uninstall it, would take reading through
all the reference documents they had me link to...and print
out....about 25 pages worth.......if I were to do it. The cure
is worse than the disease. Sounds a little like trying to get
rid of my Recovery Console.

I will experiment with the cloned hard drive, and see if the
procedures you have kindly detailed will get it 'repaired'.
I doubt that I would ever accept the risks and uncertainties
of doing it on my sacred system. The cloned drive may or may
not be amenable to responding to that procedure. We shall see.
And thank you for your inputs.

--
William B. Lurie