I am not an IT guy or geek, but I used the following with W2K and the hardwares in the new PC, after the upgrade, worked between 95 and 100%. I have a triple boot (98, W2K, XP) hard drive that can boot 2 PC's that have quite different hardwares, eg. ALI chipset and VIA chipset.
1. Go to Hardware Profile in your currently working PC. Copy the current profile (probably the only one) to a new one. In the Hardware Profiles windows check "Wait until I select ..." near the bottom.
2. Reboot your PC using the New Profile
3. To play it safe disable (blanking) all administrator password.
4. Go to Device Manager and bring up Properties for each of the devices that you KNOW will not be in the New PC. Then "do not use..." those devices from the current profile (New Profile). NO need to do this to the following sections in Device Manager: Computer, Disk Drives, DVD Drives, Floppy related, Ports, System Devices, USB. While doing this you will be prompted to reboot a few
times. Just choose "NO". When you are all done, SHUT DOWN the PC using normal procedures.
5. Clone/create the hard drive (partitions, OS, softwares to a new one.
6. After connecting your new hard drive to your New PC, use the following procedures below in exact order to try and reboot your New PC. You may be tempted to skip other procedures and jump to the second last one but doing so, if I remember correctly, will not work. As you think you are nearing success or the end of installation, your keyboard will somehow be disabled when prompted to enter CD key. Therefore the process will not be completed, and at that point you need to erase the whole new hard drive and start from procedure 5.
7. If your new hard drive in your New PC boots all the way to Desktop, you are in business. Otherwise:-
8. Boot New PC using W2K CD
Choose Repair
Choose Repair Using Emergency Repair Process
Choose Manual Repair
Uncheck Inspect Startup, Verify System File Check ONLY Inspect Boot Sector
Follow screen instructions to repair and reboot
9. Reboot (will probably fail)
10. Boot New PC using W2K CD
Choose Repair
Choose Repair Using Emergency Repair Process
Choose Fast Repair
Choose 2nd option: NO Emergency Repair Disk
SKIP drive examination, follow screen instructions to repair and reboot
11. Reboot (will probably fail)
12. Boot New PC using W2K CD
Choose Setup W2K
Choose Agree
Choose Repair existing W2K and follow screen instruction
13. After a complete and successful re-installation in the New PC, modify Network ID & REGEDIT by changing all entries of your old system's computer name to a new name. Otherwise your New PC will not work properly with the old one under the same LAN.