The Ghost file is a clone of the original, including the hardware settings. If the new machine has different hardware, Windows 98 and 2000 can discover and bind in the new hardware, but Product Activation will choke XP.

Norton Ghost copies byte by byte. There won't be a problem upgrading using new hard drive. Just as long as the new drive is the same size or larger, but cannot be smaller.

If you're running 95 or 98....
Make sure you boot up into safe mode
and remove all references to the old hardware
in the device manager.
Also uninstall any software programs that
are specific to the old machine's hardware.

Re-Boot and start adding in your hardware drivers.

If you have problems... remove everything but
the videocard. Install the drivers for the
motherboard first, then videocard.

Once that runs to your liking.. begin to add your
hardware a piece at a time and install the drivers
as you go.

Good luck