1 . I have a old laptop I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on. (It was ACER)

2 . I booted into single user mode and backed it up via

cd /
sudo -i
tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/dev --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

3 . I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 1204 on my new laptop (It is Dell)

4 . I boot into single user mode

5 . I backup the existing /boot directory

6 . I untar my backup to restore on to the Dell

sudo tar xvfpz backup.tgz -C /

7 . I restore the previous /boot directory again

8 . I boot it up, and my profile and settings are loaded ok but, Ubuntu shows that there is no Sound Card.. I cannot use unity to drag and change volume. I noticed that the network card also doesnt work.

** How do you make ubuntu recognize changed hardware, if the hardware is already configured for a different laptop? Does anyone know?**