NT (and most OSes) detect hardware configuration at boot time.
If you restore \WINNT\SYSTEM32, you overwrite what the machine detected with
what the old machine had.  A bad thing.

Prevention: exclude \WINNT\SYSTEM32 from backups.  (Maybe exclude all of
\WINNNT ? Not sure.)

Solution to your problem: here are notes from a couple of successes from
this list.

 Hi all -
 > THANKS for all the suggestions on restoring NT to unlike hardware.
 > After 16 fruitless (well, seemed fruitless anyway) hours yesterday, it
 > came together in 1 hour today.  Here's what I had to do:
 > 1. Format the C: partition FAT and leave it empty
 > 2. Install the D: partition FAT and install NT and ADSM on it.
 >    I used the same machine name and domain name as the original machine
 > 3. Do a DSMC RES {SYS}\* -SU=YES -REP=ALL
 >     SYS is the drive label of the C: drive on both the original machine
 >     and the new machine
 > 4. Do an ATTRIB BOOT.INI -S -H on both C:,D: and copy D:\BOOT.INI C:\
 > 5. Copy D:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\HAL.DLL C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32
 >    (This fixed an error about invalid HAL.DLL on bootup after restore)
 > 6. Copy C:\ADSM.SYS\REGISTRY\id\MACHINE\*.* C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG
 >    Copy C:\ADSM.SYS\REGISTRY\id\USERS\*.* C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG
 >      where id is the machine name of the source machine.  This skips a
 >      subdir under USERS called SYSTEM.  It has 2 files, SYSTE000 and
 >      SYSTE000.KEY that I didn't copy over, and don't know what they are
 > 7. Delete C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
 > 8. Boot to DOS and copy D:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM to C:\same
 > 9. Boot up the new C: partition.
 > That's it.  It seems to boot up fine now.  I don't know if it has full
 > functionality of the original.  I'll ask someone to help test when the
 > holiday is over.  If I run into any changes to the above plan, I'll
 > let you all know.
 > I guess I would summarize the above plan as
 > 1. Create 2 partitions, install NT on 1 of them, format them FAT.
 > 2. Restore to the blank one.
 > 3. Copy the restored registry that sits in ADSM.SYS to the proper
 >    location.  Then delete the SYSTEM hive and copy it from your other
 >    partition.  Copy HAL.DLL and BOOT.INI from your other partition as
 >    well.
 > My 2 machines are significantly different, one being an HP Netserver
 > with RAID and the target being an HP Vectra, no raid or special
 > devices.
 > Thanks again.
 > Julie Phinney