Is it possible to clone an old Windows XP machine to modern hardware?

Question

I was given a task to migrate an old machine based on Windows XP to newer hardware.

I have tried using Clonezilla to generate an image from the IDE HDD. The problem I am getting now is getting the restored image on a SATA Advanced Format HDD to boot into XP.

The system reboots by itself when I try to boot it into XP. I am able to select Safe Mode but it reboots itself after showing a list of files loaded.

Anyone has any advice on how should I proceed, if it is possible? Or any other tools or methods I should try?

Install an OS that is still supported; migrate your application. — Gerald Schneider, Mar 11 '20 at 09:52
Wish I could use a newer OS, problem is that the supported OS mention by the ones dealing with the software is up to XP. — amsga, Mar 11 '20 at 15:01

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '20 at 10:00

With high probability XP do not support the new hardware. And IMO the best you can do is to convert the physical machine to virtual. This can help gracefully scale the virtual machine, take snapshots and so on. And also you will have virtual machine which support XP.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 11 '20 at 10:32

Running XP on modern hardware is difficult due to the lack of device drivers; also, even if you have the correct drivers, moving a XP system to different physical hardware is usually difficult.

Your best bet is virtualization. You should generate a virtual machine from your old system (there are several conversion tools available) and run it inside the hypervisor of your choice.

If you don't have any virtualization server, just use Hyper-V, which is included in all recent Windows systems (including client ones).

Is it possible to clone an old Windows XP machine to modern hardware?

2 Answers2