Solved Would cloning the XP OS to a new hard drive work?

Owengogen

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tl;dr version
1.) Using Acronis's Universal Restore, should cloning OEM XP from a different system to a new system/new hard drive work? The purpose of doing this is to upgrade to Windows 8 without sacrificing my Vista installation. Is there anything I should know?

2.) How can I determine what kind of optical drive caddy will be best suited for my computer? I have a HP DV9700

3.) Is the digital download of Windows 8 re-installable? Is there any issue with installing it to a new system if the system it was previously installed to was wiped? I'm confused by the whole OEM thing



I'm thinking it would be wise to purchase a digital copy of Windows 8 while it's on sale still, but I'm not sure if it would be practical for me to install it & use up my Vista key in doing so. I'm taking a Computer Science course as well as a Game Design one, and I'm guessing that most of the software I will be using will not be compatible in Windows 8... so to get rid of Vista, I'd be getting myself in trouble & would probably have to rely on lab computers and registry work arounds.

Instead, I'm thinking it'd be a good idea to try to use Acronis True Image 2012 via Universal Restore to make a copy of my old Windows XP laptop, put the copy on a new hard drive, then install Windows 8 on the new hard drive & replace the old laptop's OS with Ubuntu. Should cloning the XP OS to a new hard drive work, even though my old XP laptop uses an OEM key?

I'm also wondering if I could get help with selecting an optical drive bay hard drive caddy for my HP DV9700, since I figure having a 2nd hard drive for my vista or Win 8 installation would be more convenient than trying to deal with a partition on this already old hard drive... If it matters, I only have USB 2.0 and would rather get a regular notebook internal than a solid state drive.

This is the drive I have now:
Newegg.com - Hitachi GST Travelstar 5K250 HTS542525K9SA00 (0A53329) 250GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
This is the kind of drive I would like to get for the optical drive, if it fits (or swap places with my current hdd) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136835


One last thing - if I am to do the whole cloning XP thing to a new hard drive, then upgrade to Windows 8 from there, would I be able to use that installation of Windows 8 later on a new system - if I had uninstalled it from this one? Installing Windows 8 isn't a one time use or anything, is it?
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win Vistax64, Win XP SP3
tl;dr version
1.) Using Acronis's Universal Restore, should cloning OEM XP from a different system to a new system/new hard drive work? The purpose of doing this is to upgrade to Windows 8 without sacrificing my Vista installation. Is there anything I should know?

Welcome to Eightforums.

Your OEM Win XP is not transfeable to a different system/new PC.

You can upgrade the OEM Win XP to Windows 8,
or
upgrade the OEM Win Vista PC to Windows 8.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
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