My boss has bought 6 new pc's and has asked me to install both commercial software and our own customised accounting software on each system.

He wants every PC to be identical.

I put everything on the first machine today and it took me around 2 to 3 hours.

My nephew said that what I could now do is clone that pc's hard drive and then install that clone onto the other pc's - it would be very much faster.

I haven't a clue where to begin to do this.

Is what my nephew says possible? Please say 'yes' - you'll save me hours of drudgery!

And if so do I need special software to accomplish it or is there some free software I could download from the net to do the job for me?

We're running windows xp professional.

Thanks.

Yes, it's possible! You can clone the hard drive or in other words you can ghost the hard drive. There are 2 known softwares you can use:

1. Norton Ghost - http://www.symantecstore.com/dr/sat1/ec_MAIN.Entry17c?CID=0&PN=5&SP=10007&SID=49997&PID=754931&ClickID=bvlf1fuukkkemvefszluvy6ylkekvvudkg&CUR=840&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=0

- Follow this instruction on this site: http://www.bay-wolf.com/ghostclone.htm

2. Partition Magic (also by Norton) - http://www.powerquest.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=sp&pvid=pm80

- Follow this instruction on this site: http://www.directron.com/ghosting.html

God Luck!

--- swishchix --- :)

Many thanks swishchix - have downloaded these freebies and will give them a go!

Umm neither of those are freebies. Partition Magic doesn't do cloning it only copies partitions within the same machine.

The other major cloning software is Acronis True Image.

But you actually don't need any cloning software, though that is easier.

What you can do is take the hard drive from the setup system, and install it temporarily as a slave in the other systems. Then use drive copying software (you can get that free from the drive mfg's web site) to clone the drive.

You might want to do some more resarch at Microsoft.com about deploying images. If you don't do it right you may have licensing issues since each machine will have the same license.

palex9, scottgem is right! They are not freebies but you can use your hard drive manufacturer's utility cd that came w/ it. I know Western Digital and Maxtor has those free utility tool to copy 1 HD to another. Am not sure about Samsung though and other HD manufacturers.

Western Digital (Data Lifeguard Tools -http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=1)
Maxtor - Maxblast 4 (http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FSupport%2FSoftware+Downloa ds%2FTop+Downloads&downloadID=58)