> I've been using the same OS install on my laptop (Debian=20
> Linux) for about 3 years now. It's been through 3 different=20
> laptops, and 4 or 5 different hard drives, and never=20
> reinstalled. I just transfer it from one HDD to another;=20
> sometimes across the network. haven't had any real problems with it.
>=20
> that doesn't count the number of times I've taken a running=20
> server off a dying HDD and put it on a good drive or drive=20
> array, suffering only an hour or two of downtime, and losing=20
> little/no data.
>=20
> so it definitely can be done. what sort of specific problems=20
> did you run into when you tried it?

Tried it on a RH 7.1, 7.2 system.  I can't remember exactly ALL the
problems I ran into, but generally they dealt with kudzu.  The general
problem was that the hardware wasn't an exact match, and while I could
boot the system, I'd start running into things that kudzu wouldn't find
(it would find them on a new install, but not a reboot, or copied
system).  Or I'd run into things that just didn't work right.

I found the mkcdrec package, and that's taken care of my recovery/system
move issues with Linux.