New motherboard with IDE card

[ccmg]

I'm going to upgrade my motherboard from a Gigabyte Ga7-VRXP to a Gigabyte Ga7-N400 Pro2. My main XP hard drive is running on a SIIG ATA/100 PCI card. Will I have to reinstall XP after I upgrade my motherboard, or will XP just ask me to install the new drivers.

Thanks for any help,

Ryan

 

[Sniper82]

You need to always redo windows when upgrading a mobo in order for it to perform the way its suppost to. Chances are unless the mobo uses identical North Bridge,South Bridge,ect WinXP won't even load.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ^Sniper^
You need to always redo windows when upgrading a mobo in order for it to perform the way its suppost to. Chances are unless the mobo uses identical North Bridge,South Bridge,ect WinXP won't even load.

Well, I would recommend using a Repair Installation, which rebuilds the hardware entries in your registry but leaves your installed programs and data alone. This worked for me when I upgraded my MB/CPU in WinXP, and I've seen other reports of it working successfully.

However, every time someone asks this, half the board seems to get into a big argument over whether or not you need to fully reformat and reinstall whenever you upgrade ANYTHING (some people, it seems, reformat their hard drives at the drop of a hat). However, just about everyone who insists you HAVE to reformat only backs this up with vague statements about "incompatibilities" and "instability", although they seem rather unclear on the causes (but are adamant that your system will never work properly if you don't do it). You can search for the old threads if you want... I don't think there's a whole lot more to add.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: ^Sniper^
You need to always redo windows when upgrading a mobo in order for it to perform the way its suppost to. Chances are unless the mobo uses identical North Bridge,South Bridge,ect WinXP won't even load.

Well, I would recommend using a Repair Installation, which rebuilds the hardware entries in your registry but leaves your installed programs and data alone. This worked for me when I upgraded my MB/CPU in WinXP, and I've seen other reports of it working successfully.

However, every time someone asks this, half the board seems to get into a big argument over whether or not you need to fully reformat and reinstall whenever you upgrade ANYTHING (some people, it seems, reformat their hard drives at the drop of a hat). However, just about everyone who insists you HAVE to reformat only backs this up with vague statements about "incompatibilities" and "instability", although they seem rather unclear on the causes (but are adamant that your system will never work properly if you don't do it). You can search for the old threads if you want... I don't think there's a whole lot more to add.

Personally I've never thought of that. Sounds like it might work. But what little I upgrade a HDD/mobo redoing windows ain't a problem. Not to mention I keep all my stuff backed up on the second partion so reinstalling apps is quick. I would do one of the 2 regardless. But if I'm gonna repair windows I might as well take little more time and start from fresh not to mention it will remove all/most of the spyware or anything else that might be there that you don't know about.

 

[AMCRambler]

It might work without reloading Windows, it might not. I'd say your chances are 50/50. I bought a new mobo when I was having problems with my old 1 gig Athlon Slot A and I just swapped the new board in and powered it up. In ran through a bunch of hardware detection, and I had to feed it drivers for the new mobo off the cd, but other than that it worked fine. I can definitely see it not working in some cases though. What do you have to lose though? If it doesn't work you're just going to reload it anyway. Just backup anything you want to keep ahead of time.