Hard drive motherboard xp issue

[joojoomary]

I was wondering on how to go about replacing my motherboard and keeping the same hd. If i were to switch from VIA board to nforce2 and i was hoping i could just hook everything back up, would i have issues with the hd and new mobo?

 

[RagingBITCH]

Normally you shouldn't. Windows would recognize a new mobo and install all the necessary crap needed and probably reboot. Most people say it's good to do a fresh format and reinstall after you install a new motherboard, but that's your perogative.

 

[Harvey]

It's a little tricky, but it can be done. It would help if you had a second hard drive, even temporarily, so you could Ghost your drive before you start. And remember, Windows happens so no guarantees, other than I've done this successfully.

1. Boot up in Safe Mode.

2. Go to Device Manager, and delete all the VIA specific items. You'll find a lot of them under System devices, Universal Serial Bus controllers, Sound, video and game controllers (if you're using the onboard sound), Network adapters if you're going to use the nVidia's onboard LAN.

3. Install the drive in your new setup. When it boots, Windows will find all the new devices. It will install whatever drivers are already on the drive, and it will prompt you for your installation disks for any that aren't. You will also probably need your Windows disk.

If all goes well, you should be up and running in a few reboots. Go back to Device Manager, and look for any of the dreaded yellow question marks to see if anything is still missing.

Good luck. Remember (to repeat myself) Ghost is your friend. If you make a mistake, you can Ghost the drive back to your starting point and try to figure out what went wrong, and if any of your data gets corrupted for ANY reason, you will still have the backup.

Good luck.

 

[joojoomary]

yea it seems simple enough i just dont want to lose everything i have now

 

[Swampster]

Harvey's suggestion to start by making a mirror of your current HDD is excellent, but I think you could benefit from a little expansion on that thought.

If you are running a Windows 9x operating system, it will work perfectly . . . all you have to do is give it the CD that comes with your new motherboard, and all will be well with the world in 3 or 4 reboots.

HOWEVER, if you have WinXP, there are a whole different set of problems you need to consider, which is why the mirror drive would be absolutely necessary. Remember, because of Activation you cannot move your operating system to a new computer, which is what you are doing when you replace the motherboard.

I am assuming that in doing so you will also be upgrading the CPU to something a little faster, and of course, a couple of newer and faster sticks of memory, plus the video, chipset, sound and NIC will be different . . . in other words, a brand new system as far as WinXP is concerned.

Under the older operating systems, if I would be building, say for example, 10 new systems for a client. There would be nothing, for all practical purposes (except for ethics), to stop me from getting one computer up and fully loaded with OS and sortware etc. and then mirroring it to the other 9 HDDs. Many less than ethical individuals (and smaller computer shops) did this, and this is exactly what caused Microsoft to come up with this this annoyance.

 

[Harvey]

Swampster is right that XP will probably recognize a new system. The procedure I outlined is a way to try to keep all your settings and system updates. It is not intended as a way to violate MS's user agreement. If it works, you may have to reactivate the installation, but you won't have to reinstall everything from the ground, up.

Again, I cannot overstress the importance of Ghosting (mirroring) the drive before you start. One mistake can blow the entire process. OTOH, the worst that can happen is exactly what you are trying to avoid -- the extra work of reinstalling and updating all of your programs. If you end up having to do that, I hope you have high speed. Doing a whole system over dial-up will take a lot of time.