All -
This is the deal...
Had a Thinkpad T-61 with partitioned Disk 0 into logical disks C: (System other stuff - no hidden partition), D: (disk images, data back up), E: reload programs and drivers. (WD SATA 320GB, 8 GB new RAM)
System was drowned in unknown "goo" and was essentially DOA - no power, no battery indicators.
Harddrive was swapped into my T-61p, and after doing a system enumeration, harddive proved to be uncorrupted (whew) - at least 12 hrs of config not blown, and data saved.
New T-61 base purchased (virtually identical to old one), LCD screen swapped, and after putting original harddrive, went through new enumeration as , of course, machine now "looked different" and did the Activation dance for both Win 8.1 and Office 2013.
The problem - looking in the registry it looks like I have 3 different "hardware profiles". However, "hardware profiles" with ditched starting with Vista. What I find is the wireless card is now Card #2 (not 3 as mine was an Intel BGN, not a BG), Wireless devices at now Wi-Fi 3 (not Wi-Fi) as is appears machine thinks there are 3 different hardware profiles, although only one is real. Looking at the Registry, it is clear there are multiple entries, I assume each time the harddrive was inserted for test purposes, and finally in the repaired machine with new mobo, etc.
Question - can these now "bogus" profiles be deleted or overwritten somehow to make this into a "clean machine". In XP, this would have been easy - get rid of the "obsolete" hardware profiles. In 8.1 can one do this with a Restore, Refresh or, worst option (and I have done this) Reinstall 8.1 and everything else on the C: partition. (Good thing - this is someone else Thinkpad with Office 2013, and maybe 10 other programs including utils, AV, and all data backed up; it's not mine, a T-61p used intensively as a development machine for Oracle, SQL-Server, MySQL, etc.)
Fortunately, the Thinkpads seem to be indestructible (T-61), and not like the old company Toshiba's that they had a stack of 15 in various stages of rebuilds/repairs for which I burned a series compatible XP disk image that just required a data reload.
Thanks in advance!!!