I have

 

a) never installed a legit copy of Windows

 

b) never found any nasties in any Jim'd copy of Windows.

c) been very, very lucky.

 

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Perhaps?

Your definition of c) presumes that that the majority of pirate releases of Windows are dodgey. My experience, and I'm sure most/all people on here who've jim'd Windows, would certainly suggest that that's a load of balls.

 

>>Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Perhaps?

 

I never said it was, but when looking at probabilities past performance, with the appropriate caveats, is better than nothing.

 

I've never been hit by a bus when crossing the road. I might be tomorrow, as it's technically possible for that to happen, but I'm guessing it probably wont. On account of having a modicum of inteligence and thinking to check what's coming before comiting to crossing the road.

I'm glad we've never had unprotected sex though!

 

(hug)

People make those comments just to be assholes. If it's piratebay you're usng, just choose a download from a trusted uploader (they have a green or pink icon next to their name) and it'll be fine.

I'd try running the cloned drive on the desktop it works on and sysprep it. Sysprep on XP was a bit hit and miss with the way it handled pre-installed drivers, so you may get lucky, or you may not. You may want to try uninstalling most of them on the desktop, before the sysprep. When it's shut itself down, plonk it into the laptop and turn it on. It'll then start up like it's booting for the first time, so you may get lucky and that fixes it.

 

Obviously you'll then need to put all of the correct drivers onto it, and activate it with a key.

Yes. Boot UBCD4Win and run FixHDC - this replaces the hard disk controller drivers on the old copy of Windows with ones that work with the current hardware. It's never failed for me.

Of course you'll have to make a UBCD4Win (or you could use another BartPE disk) first, but you'll never regret that. It's the most useful system fixing disk ever.