Transfer Vista to new Motherboard:

[Piet]

I have a problem on my motherboard suddenly on which I had my Vista for
ages, and I have to go to a new motherboard. I will be using all my current
peripherals, HD, memory
Graphics.

Will be going from a Albatron PXP35 to an Albatron PX48, still using my Quad
6600 processor.

I would hate to lose my carefully nursed system.

Can somebody please recommend a way to overcome this. I can already see
problems if I switch the new PC on :-((

Piet

 

[Earle Horton]

I just did this with XP. Of course the new system did not boot into
Windows, but after running XP Setup in repair mode all was well. Sometimes
you get lucky. I have had them boot into Windows after a motherboard
upgrade, and then ask for new drivers and activation. It will depend on
exactly how different the new hardware is, but the default drivers are
pretty generic. Make sure your Product Key is handy.

"Just in case", you might want to clone your system to an external HD first.
I use Symantec Ghost in DOS mode for this. Then if anything goes wrong you
will have a backup.

Earle

 

[Mick Murphy]

Vista does not have the Repair installation of files like XP does.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I have a problem on my motherboard suddenly on which I had my Vista for
ages, and I have to go to a new motherboard. I will be using all my
current peripherals, HD, memory
Graphics.

Will be going from a Albatron PXP35 to an Albatron PX48, still using my
Quad 6600 processor.

I would hate to lose my carefully nursed system.

Can somebody please recommend a way to overcome this. I can already see
problems if I switch the new PC on :-((

Those boards have different chipsets (P35 > X48), so it's probably not going
to be as easy as it would have been otherwise.

I have moved OS installations between completely different hardware, as an
emergency temporary measure, and for other people, using Acronis True Image
Workstation, with the Universal Restore addon. It resets the Hardware
Abstraction Layer, and works very well. I use it much more often to make
existing OS installations into virtual machines.

I would personally prefer to make a fresh OS installation with the new
motherboard, for the sake of total stability. What I would do in your
situation, is make a virtual machine out of the current installation, then
make a frsh install with the new motherboard. I would then run the virtual
machine on that, to extract %appdata%, registry settings, etc.. and to refer
to, to get all the cutomisations that I would want to make again.

ss.

 

[Richard G. Harper [MVP]]

Lose the system. Back up essential files and reinstall Vista clean on the
new motherboard. You will never regret doing this ... though you may never
stop regretting trying to do it on the sly or the quick and easy.

 

[+Bob+]

Lose the system. Back up essential files and reinstall Vista clean on the
new motherboard. You will never regret doing this ... though you may never
stop regretting trying to do it on the sly or the quick and easy.

Probably good advice. I always prefer a clean install, and who knows
WTF Vista will do with an attempt to adapt. It's such a POS anyway.

That said, there were three ways to accomplish this with XP that had
varying success (even with a chipset change):

1. Boot, do a repair from CD (not available in Vista)
2. Boot and watch XP (Vista?) magically detect all your new hardware
and install all the devices.
3. Boot into old install. Delete all system devices. Reboot. Watch XP
(Vista?) do step 2 above.

I'd be inclined to do a full back up, then shoot for option 2. YMMV.