Move system disk to a different PC
I have a problem: today at work I was told that tomorrow afternoon I have to give my pc back and take a new one just arrived.
It could be a good new, but I'm a developer and I use a lot of different software to work (Visual Studio, Delphi, Eclipse, Android, Apache, MySql, etc...) and I can't think about starting to reinstall and configure everything... usually it means one week lost... and some data usually get lost too with those migrations...
So, is there any way I can use my current disk as system disk on new pc?
I'm afraid because motherboard and cpu are completely different...
Is there something I could do to prepare "migration"? Any kind of Sysprep command so when Windows Seven boots start recognizing new devices without getting lost with previous ones?
UPDATE:
Perhaps I've just found a suitable solution here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/135077-windows-7-installation-transfer-new-computer.html
What kills most drive transfers is the disk driver. Sysprep is designed to remove most drivers which allows you to boot to an installation environment and redetect the drivers. As others stated, you need configure the Hard drive settings in the BIOS of the new system to match your old one (AHCI, RAID, or IDE). I'd grab a secondary hard drive and make clone of the current disk in case something goes horribly wrong. There are a ton of disk mirroring solutions out there so pick your preferred flavor. (I use easeus disk mirror)
From your description, you may need to reorganize how you are saving your data. If you are concerned about data loss when a workstation goes down, you are doing it wrong. Your data should be arranged in a way that it is either stored on redundant network locations, or have automatic backups to a secondary storage device. There are hundreds of backup schemes out there and a ton of tools to help set this up. The investment of a little time and hardware can save a ton of time rebuilding lost files.
Finally, you might think about building some automated installation scripts. Most programs come with a silent installer option to make doing this a breeze. While the time investment to set this up is longer than a simple install, it makes the chore of reinstalling an easy one. Being able to rebuild a system quickly is really useful when you have a team all using the same software.
Food for thought, good luck.
Symantec Sytem Recovery will do this easily. It restores to different hardware System Recovery Desktop Edition has an eval version. I have used this many times for systems with complex software installs. It will warn you about drivers for the new hardware but I would grab video, NIC and any others you can and have them ready on a USB drive or something. This has saved me many hours over the past few years.