>>>Switching motherboards with windows XP - Urgent

[John Monahan]

I have a system with an ASUS P4P800-E Pentium 4 motherboard. It has Windows
XP on a large IDE drive. I would like to update the motherboard to an ASUS
P5W DH-Deluxe board that has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip. The reason I picked
this board is it has 4 IDE slots and so it will allow me to retain all my
current drives etc.

My question is is what is the easiest way to "bring up the system" with the
new board. For example if I just install everything and reboot will it come
up in some kind of minimal mode (with errors).

I looked at the suppport chips:-
The P4P800 has a Northside controller using the Intel 82865PE 7 a Southside
Intel ICH5R
while the 5WP has a Northside Intel 975X and a Southside Intel ICH7R

Does anybody know if these are "close enough" to get the system up so I can
then install the proper new drivers from the supplied CD's.

How have othe people handeled swapping motherboards without changing hard
drives.

 

[John]

How have othe people handeled swapping motherboards without changing hard
drives.

Usually a "Repair" install of XP is required to make the
HAL match the new motherboard.

 

[John Monahan]

But won't it just go and look for the old drivers. Is it intellegent enough
to realize that the hardware has changed? With a repair will I loose all my
registry entries etc.

 

[Paul]

I have a system with an ASUS P4P800-E Pentium 4 motherboard. It has Windows
XP on a large IDE drive. I would like to update the motherboard to an ASUS
P5W DH-Deluxe board that has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip. The reason I picked
this board is it has 4 IDE slots and so it will allow me to retain all my
current drives etc.

My question is is what is the easiest way to "bring up the system" with the
new board. For example if I just install everything and reboot will it come
up in some kind of minimal mode (with errors).

I looked at the suppport chips:-
The P4P800 has a Northside controller using the Intel 82865PE 7 a Southside
Intel ICH5R
while the 5WP has a Northside Intel 975X and a Southside Intel ICH7R

Does anybody know if these are "close enough" to get the system up so I can
then install the proper new drivers from the supplied CD's.

How have othe people handeled swapping motherboards without changing hard
drives.

Instructions for a Repair Install are here. You can make a Slipstreamed
Windows install disk, with a program like Autostreamer - that at least puts
your latest Service Pack on the same CD as the original WinXP, if you have
an original WinXP CD. You'll still need to put back Security Updates, so a
trip to Windows Update, after the system is running, will be required.
The Service Pack level, will be whatever level the Install CD has on it,
which is why I used my slipstreamed installer disk. If you updated IE, that
will have to be repeated as well. But otherwise, your old apps and settings
should be preserved.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

I like to make a backup copy of the boot drive, before
moving the disk. If anything goes wrong, you'll have an
"escape plan". For my system, I do stuff like that with
my old copy of Partition Magic.

Paul

 

[John Monahan]

Thanks paul that was a big help. Already slipstreamed XP.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have a system with an ASUS P4P800-E Pentium 4 motherboard. It has Windows
XP on a large IDE drive. I would like to update the motherboard to an ASUS
P5W DH-Deluxe board that has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip. The reason I picked
this board is it has 4 IDE slots and so it will allow me to retain all my
current drives etc.

My question is is what is the easiest way to "bring up the system" with the
new board. For example if I just install everything and reboot will it come
up in some kind of minimal mode (with errors).

I looked at the suppport chips:-
The P4P800 has a Northside controller using the Intel 82865PE 7 a Southside
Intel ICH5R
while the 5WP has a Northside Intel 975X and a Southside Intel ICH7R

Does anybody know if these are "close enough" to get the system up so I can
then install the proper new drivers from the supplied CD's.

How have othe people handeled swapping motherboards without changing hard
drives.

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many factory-installed OEM
installations are BIOS-locked to a specific chipset and therefore are
*not* transferable to a new motherboard - check yours before starting),
unless the new motherboard is virtually identical (same chipset, same
IDE controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the one on which the WinXP
installation was originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair
(a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with WinXP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

The "why" is quite simple, really, and has nothing to do with
licensing issues, per se; it's a purely technical matter, at this point.
You've pulled the proverbial hardware rug out from under the OS. (If
you don't like -- or get -- the rug analogy, think of it as picking up a
Cape Cod style home and then setting it down onto a Ranch style
foundation. It just isn't going to fit.) WinXP, like Win2K before it,
is not nearly as "promiscuous" as Win9x when it comes to accepting any
old hardware configuration you throw at it. On installation it
"tailors" itself to the specific hardware found. This is one of the
reasons that the entire WinNT/2K/XP OS family is so much more stable
than the Win9x group.

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also probably require re-activation, unless you have a
Volume Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than
120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the Internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.


--

Bruce Chambers

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[Loren Pechtel]

I have a system with an ASUS P4P800-E Pentium 4 motherboard. It has Windows
XP on a large IDE drive. I would like to update the motherboard to an ASUS
P5W DH-Deluxe board that has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip. The reason I picked
this board is it has 4 IDE slots and so it will allow me to retain all my
current drives etc.

My question is is what is the easiest way to "bring up the system" with the
new board. For example if I just install everything and reboot will it come
up in some kind of minimal mode (with errors).

I looked at the suppport chips:-
The P4P800 has a Northside controller using the Intel 82865PE 7 a Southside
Intel ICH5R
while the 5WP has a Northside Intel 975X and a Southside Intel ICH7R

Does anybody know if these are "close enough" to get the system up so I can
then install the proper new drivers from the supplied CD's.

How have othe people handeled swapping motherboards without changing hard
drives.

In general you can reboot to safe mode and install the drivers that
came with the new board. I have always had this work but I have heard
of people for whom it didn't.