Must I reformat due to new motherboard?
 

Hey, this is probably a stupid question but sadly i dont know the answer. I just got my Athlon 64 and Asus K8V SE Deluxe today and was going to upgrade. This upgrade will be from a KX7-333 and Athlon XP 1800. Is it necessary for me to reformat and reinstall windows with this new mobo?

Is it necessary? Most of the time, yes. Will it work on occasions? Yeah, but it usually fucks up within a month. I'd format the HDD and reinstall Windows. I know of a regedit tweak that wipes every motherboard hardware setting from your hard drive so you can install a new one, but I've never tried it and don't really want to. It's much easier to reinstall Windows...it only takes like 30 minutes.

-Lasereth

Right, i dont really mind reinstalling windows, but the format is going to be a pain in the ass. hmm what to do..


Wait, if i reinstall XP keeps all my settings doesnt it? Like shortcuts, installed programs ect. It will just reinstall the hardware drivers i believe..

I would reinstall XP. That's asking for a headache! I'm guessing you don't wanna format because you have a bunch of stuff to backup. Oh well, I know how ya feel...but it's a much better idea to just start clean. Good luck!

-Lasereth

If you choose not to format, Windows may not boot after making the hardware change. You can do a "repair" install by booting from the CD. You'll be prompted at one point to actually repair the installation or install Windows again. You'll actually want to go with the second option. Confusing, I know :D. I went from AMD to Intel flawlessly, but I had to repair install when upgrading later on from an Intel reference i865 to an Asus P4P800 (also an i865), so there's really no reliable metric.

alright thanks for the ideas, a guy just told me to try a program called "sysprep" so i think i will try that, and do a repair install if necessary.

As Lasereth said, formatting and reinstalling Windows is the best and most thorough route. But, with Rotten's idea in mind, Repairing Windows actually <i>does work</i>. I've used it many times to switch a motherboard or other similar things. When you boot from the Windows XP CD, choose Repair a Windows Installation (or something like it) instead of Install.

I highly suggest you either Repair or Format and Reinstall Windows. Do not switch the hardware and leave the OS intact (if you can even get it to work). It leads to problems :)

If the IDE controller is different, it will flip out and give you INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE stop screen. (Hope I spelled that right haha) You'll see this in most situations when the chipset of the motherboard has changed. Easy way to get around it is to change your IDE drivers to the Standard IDE Controller drivers (granted this will make your system run slower since it won't be tweaked for the best IDE performance) but you should be able to boot into Windows after the motherboard switch then spend half the day updating drivers and rebooting.

The repair installation will basically run Windows setup without destroying anything. Boot to the CD, hit ENTER to say you want to install Windows. The next prompt will give you a chance to repair it. That's when you want to choose repair. I'd prefer this method over the above method since Windows will redetect all hardware and you won't have any "ghost" devices laying around causing potential problems in the future.

Good luck!

I agree with Lasereth. You can try the other hacks but you will probably end up having to reformat eventually. I suggest backing up your stuff and starting fresh so everything will be optimal. Hacks and workarounds are just that, a band-aid that will only last so long.

When I upgraded my motherboard, the computer didn't even notice. (Around 2000-2001)

I actually just did this.

I had my data backed up and ready and just decided that it wouldnt hurt to go ahead and see if Windows worked without a reinstall (I also replaced the vid card and proc). Booted up, found all the new hardware, and still works fine.

Its going to need a reinstall soon anyways, but it was a nice experiment, and I was glad to see that it worked.

Regardless of which way you choose to go you should back up all your data first. Sure, it will be cumbersome (and possibly costly) to do it all, especially if you only have a CD burner instead of a DVD burner but if something goes wrong, at least you have your data (and porn!!).

Once you have already backed everything up; at that point you might as well just format and re-install anyways.
:)

The sysprep method will work as well and won't require the reformat of the drive. Make sure you get the correct version of sysprep for your operating system. It is located on the Installation CD. Right now I can't remember exactly where but if you search the Microsoft site for sysprep, you will find the info on how to use it.

I use sysprep all the time with XP based machines when upgrading the mobo and it works flawlesly. Oh yeah, you have to have a full install of the OS for it to work, no upgrades allowed. Also, if you have XP and have already installed SP2, you will have to download the sysprep utility from Microsoft, the one on the CD won't work right.

when i upgraded my mobo it had to format. It would not turn on at all. after format it worked. Personly when im upgrading sumtin i want to see its best perfomance so i usualy format just to start off clean ))

Sysprep at hrdwareguy's suggestion worked very well for me -- in fact, this is almost the same question I asked. The one thing that happened to me is MS Outlook (2k, at least) will no longer allow you to save passwords and it will erase those ones you do have stored. You have to do a regedt32 modification in order to get Outlook to accept stored passwords again.

well sysprep failed me :\
ended up just reformatting and reinstalling a fresh copy of windows. Time consuming but I didnt loose too terribly much stuff. Thanks for your input folks.