Question regarding installation on a new rig

[Wolfko 0]

I hope the admins do not consider this as a hardware post.Next week i shall get a new rig. Hence my question: what is the best way to transfer FS9 from my old system to the new one. I have collected lots and lots of addons, freeware and payware over the past few years and want to avaoid to go throught the installing procedures again. For freeware this would be a to big a problem, but for payware with all the registration and license huzzle...Maybe a stupid idea: will it work if I just tranfer the hard drive from my old system to the new one? In my old sys I only had 1 HD, so I assume everything necessary should be on it. And the HD would be compatible with the new system.Any hints an tips are very welcome.Thanks in advanceWolfgang

[Opa 6]

>I hope the admins do not consider this as a hardware post.>>Next week i shall get a new rig. Hence my question: what is>the best way to transfer FS9 from my old system to the new>one. I have collected lots and lots of addons, freeware and>payware over the past few years and want to avaoid to go>throught the installing procedures again. For freeware this>would be a to big a problem, but for payware with all the>registration and license huzzle...>Maybe a stupid idea: will it work if I just tranfer the hard>drive from my old system to the new one? In my old sys I only>had 1 HD, so I assume everything necessary should be on it.>And the HD would be compatible with the new system.>>Any hints an tips are very welcome.>Thanks in advance>Wolfgang>You say you are getting a "new" rig - can one assume it will come with an Operating System, perhaps Vista?Theoretically you should be able to remove the new hard drive (which would have a new OS on it) and replace it with your current HD which has a known, good installation of your current OS (XP?) and all of your FS add-ons.The only thing you would be giving up - at least for the present - is whatever OS is on that new HD drive you would be removing.Hope that makes sense.

[Wolfko 0]

Opa, many thanks for your reply. Yes, this does make sense. What you say is what I wanted to hear. Actually the new system will come without OS, only whith the BIOS installed. I have a licensed copy of Win XP Pro, which I will install by myself.If I install the old HD in addition to th new one, then install Win XP also on the new HD, would it then be possible to move FS9 from the old to the new HD? Then FS9 could utilize the larger space of the new HD (320 vs 40 GB).Wolfgang

[Opa 6]

The problem with that is the OS Registry which will be created when you install the new OS, will not have the FS2004 entries in it. So just moving (Copying) your present FS2004 setup to the new HD would be problematic at best.With the right software you might be able to copy the entire old HD with the current OS unto your new, larger formatted HD (with no new OS installed on it).You may want to read my Tutorial on uninstalling and reinstalling before you do any of this as there a several very important items you need to consider. Here is a link to it:http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Search...4misc&Go=SearchWorst case scenario - New HD, New OS - You bite the bullet and re-install everything freshly.Good luck!

[Wolfko 0]

Thank you very much Opa. I'm going to download your tutorial.CheersWolfgang

[Max Kraus 338]

Not worth the hassle IMHO. By the time you copy it all across and then troubleshoot all the little erros you get when you try to run addons with no registry entries etc.... you could have reinstalled it all from scratch. Once you reinstall, you'll realise just how much useless stuff you have accumulated that you actually DON'T need. Less is the new more, my friend.

[flyinpilot212121 724]

i agree with flyhalf, I say bite the bullet and reinstall, It's a big chore, but consider it a late spring cleaning of you fs9.

[Opa 6]

One other thought -Last week I installed a new, larger Western Digital HD on the computer my wife uses here at home. This was in addition to a smaller HD she already had.The setup software allowed me to1. Format the new HD as a bootable HD and partition it if I wanted to.2. Then surprisingly enough, it copied over everthing (OS and all) from the old HD to the new one. It took awhile but copied everything perfectly.I was then able to remove her old HD and the machine booted up properly to the new, larger HD and all programs worked properly.I had visions of having re-install an OS and all of her programs but the setup software saved me from having to do that.This is just to make you aware that such things are available. Sure saved me hours of work.

[Guest over and out]

Man this is a tuff one. Either way you are in for a world of work. IMHO, since both options will be a headache, I would do a clean intall of all the flight sim stuff on the new computer. I think in the long run you'll end up with a better runing system and flight simulator.

[Wolfko 0]

Thanks to everybody who answered for his suggestions. Today my new system arrived.I think I shall use the upcoming long weekend (we have a public holiday here on friday) to either transfer the old HD from the old to the new sys or to try to copy everything from the old HD to the new one the way Opa suggested in hos last post.If neither of this options work I still can do clean installations of FS9 and all the add ons.I'll keep you updated.Cheers, Wolfgang

[Wolfko 0]

So, done! I did it as "Opa" suggested.On Sunday my brother came over with a friend of his, who owns a small IT-business. First this guy put the old HD into the new system and booted from the old HD. A test run showed that everything would ran perfectly on the new PC, also FS9! But since the old HD is only an IDE one whereas the new one is SATA we off course wanted to have FS9 on to the new HD. We managed this by actually "cloning" the content of the old HD onto the new one using a progrmamme called "Ghost" by Symantec. It took a bit more than an hour to duplicate the whole content of the drive (including the OS). The result were 2 identical systems on 2 different HDs in one PC. After this we mounted the old HD back into my old PC. So now I have 2 PCs with FS9 with all my precious add ons running on each.BTW I'm very, very pleased with the perfromance of my new system :-) Thanks again to everybody who posted. It's good to see that nothing has changed in this forum during my absence of nearly 2 years. The people here still try to do their best to help others!Cheers, Wolfgang

[enyap 0]

I recently built a new computer and reinstalled FS9 with all the addons. It wasn't as painfull as I expected, most addons are easy to reinstall if you've kept the appropriate keys and the producers who I had to contact for new installers, e.g. PMDG, Hifisim, Active Camera and Realair have excellent support. Some stuff I was able to copy over from the old hard drive, such as addon scenery, freeware aircraft and some edited panel.cfgs. I was up and running in about three days. I've now got an E8400 overclocked a bit and the whole experience makes me wonder why I waited so long, FS9 runs so well now.John