About to do an upgrade...

[TheBigZ]

Has modern man yet discovered a way to swap a MB/cpu/mem out of a box without having to pretty much reformat & reinstall the OS? I haven't upgraded a box in about 2 years, and I'm hoping there's been some new developments.
Normally, none of the system level drivers match up of course. If anyone knows a trick... please share.

 

[Vette73]

If your using Win XP then yes you can do it. If something like 98, probable not, unless being ubstable is what you want.

 

[TheBigZ]

One of the boxes is XP, yes. The other is still 98se but I suppose if it will make the hardware upgrade seemless, I could upgrade it to XP. So you're saying that XP will handle it automagically, or is there something I'd need to do? Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[JSSheridan]

Personally, I'd always reinstall when changing MB's. It's only time anyway. Peace.

 

[pspada]

In most cases Win98se will migrate just fine, although it is best if you remove any hardware specific drivers before making the move, and then adding new hardware drivers after the move. For WinXP, you can just boot from the CD-ROM, DO NOT select the 1st "repair" option, instead proceed as if doing a new install. It will find the original installation and offer to repair it, select this option, and it will replace the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) with one compatible with the new hardware. You can then load any new drivers, etc. You will then have to go back to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and download and install all the patches again. And you should at that point be up and running on the new hardware.

 

[TheBigZ]

Well... it's not JUST time.

I'm probably not alone in that I have some apps for which it would be difficult to find original install materials. And copying the dir doesn't always get it done... also gotta track down all the dll's. That's what I used to do... mirror C: to another drive, format & do a fresh install. Then a ran a little app that told me what files an app was looking for when it ran, and copied those dll's back to the system dir from the mirror'd drive. Was really a pain and there was inevitably always one app I'd lose somehow.

I like what I hear from pspada... I'll just upgrade the machine to XP before I upgrade the hardware.

Thanks guys.

 

[novice]

I have had good luck installing new motherboards without reformatting/reinstalling as long as the new motherboard used the same chipset as the old one. Via 694 to Via KT333 went just fine, even with windows 98. But I had to reinstall Win2K when I went from KT133a to Nforce 2. Didn't have to reformat though, everything seems to work fine. XP should be at least as easy.

 

[lycurgus]

You could reinstall the O/S without reformatting. You would still be left with the apps issue though, so maybe you want to try the 'delete system devices and have Windows reinstall drivers on reboot' method. Good luck.

 

[fritzfield]

I went from a K6-2 to a Celeron 533 using WIN XP and had to re-install the OS and go through the re-activation crap. But all the programs/apps worked just fine. The same thing happened when I changed HD from 40g to 120g, had to re-install OS and go through the re-activation hassle. Also had to re-activate when I took out a modem and put in a NIC, just a re-activation that time.

Good Luck.

 

[mdcrab]

I just changed mobo in my system. There is more info on how to do it if you are changing chipset manufacturers in the thread link below.

It is always best if you make a back up. I first cloned my hard drive so I always had my old one to go back too.

General Question regarding changing Mobo's

mdcrab