Removing All Windows Drivers

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I currently use Clonezilla to copy an image of a computer that I've worked on to many computers (a job of formatting and reinstalling Windows on a large amount of computers). I can't remember the blue screen of death notice I always get but it has something to do with hardware and/or drivers. The way I fix this when moving it to a VM is VMWare's vCenter Converter and removing all drivers. How can I do this without VMWare if I'm trying to copy the image to another computer? I can also see this being if I need to move a hard drive to another computer. This can be a solution that I work with clonezilla's file before transferring it to the computer or after I transfer it to the other computer.

UPDATE: I guess I don't mean all drivers but any driver that would cause a BSOD.

UPDATE: The error code I normal get is STOP 0x0000007B

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clonezilla
asked on Super User Feb 28, 2013 by Gabriel Graves • edited Feb 28, 2013 by Gabriel Graves

3 Answers

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Run the sysprep tool. Let it shutdown the computer. Now you can clone the drive.

answered on Super User Feb 28, 2013 by Alex P.
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The stop code (0x7B) means that Windows can't find the boot device. It's not a crash, the loaded drivers aren't causing a BSOD. Windows remembers what device driver it booted from previously and tries it on subsequent boots. If the driver loads, but doesn't find a device, you end up with 0x7B. Removing the driver simply fails the normal boot process, after which Windows tries any driver.

Running sysprep is the recommended way of preparing Windows to be imaged. It fixes a lot of other potential issues all at once. If you don't want to use sysprep you can edit the registry manually to kickstart the driver search process. Microsoft has directions for this process.

answered on Super User Mar 7, 2013 by Chris S
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Use your target system as the template. Take an inventory of the required drivers used by your cloned systems (VM's or not) such as with loadord.exe from SysInternals.

As a measure of prudence, just DISABLE those unnecessary drivers and services. Remember you can start and stop drivers with the same familiar methods of controlling services even if you use, for example, net stop beep.

sc config beep start= disabled (sc.exe relies on those leading spaces, weird) will turn off the pc speaker that annoyingly plays during some functions such as when executing a pause timer command.

hope you're already aware of the necessity of properly configuring your hal.sys when replicating/cloning systems especially when converting to VM's.

answered on Super User Feb 28, 2013 by user202937 • edited Feb 28, 2013 by Canadian Luke

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