Question : Problem: Ghost won't work on identical machines...

I have 50 IBM R51 laptops with XP PRO that need to be configured for our business.  So I preconfigured 1 to meet our needs and wanted to ghost the others.  I connected the source HDD on a PC and made an image of it with ghost 8.0.  I used the option -> Local -> Disk -> To Image.  It created the image without errors.  Afterwards I connected the destination HDD and tried to copy the previously created image of the source onto it...  used option ->  Local -> Disk -> From Image.  Once again no errors.  When I try to boot the destination laptop with it's newly imaged HDD I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.  So I placed the imaged HDD into the source laptop, boot it and everything works fine...  What doesn't make sense to me is that the laptops are identical (same hardware config, same bios firmware same EVERYTHING)  Why is it that I cannot boot the other laptops with a copy of the source HDD ?  I checked the boot order to make sure that it wasn't set to boot from network or usb,  everything is identical on all laptops.  Anyone???

Answer : Problem: Ghost won't work on identical machines...

There can be any number of reasons for it not to work. OEM's usually tie the operating system product key to the particular motherboard in each laptops Bios. The SID for each laptop would be different even if they are identical. There may be hardware identifiers for the hard drive for security reasons that arn't turned off when the cloning takes place.
Punky's idea, sysprep--> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577
How to use sysprep with Ghost--> http://entkb.symantec.com/security/output/n2000081610075225.html