BSOD in display driver after motherboard replacement...

[benoitm]

My laptop just returned from repair & the motherboard has been replaced; when
trying to boot Vista SP1 from the hard disk (that I kept home while the PC
was being serviced), I keep getting a BSOD (module igdkmd32.sys, i.e. the
intel GPU).
The system starts fine, and crashes a few seconds after I click my account
icon & enter my password.
I can boot in safe mode: I already tried removing the device & its drivers;
I also tried installing the latest Intel drivers for this card: same problem.

The manufacturer hotline tells me this is due to the way VISTA handles
motherboard change ! (I thought Vista would work in reduced mode in that
case, not crash) & insists on reinstalling the system from scratch.

Obviously, since the system was not a complete mess before the repair, I
don't want to go through the pain of reinstalling everything from scratch
(the OS as shipped, that's 20 min, but all the other apps + patches +
personal settings + data + device drivers + etc. will take several hours.)

So, before taking such a radical step, I want to make sure that there is no
way to recover my laptop other than starting from scratch.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, benoitm.

Sounds to me like your repairer did not finish the job! :>(

Unless the new mobo is identical to the original, Vista needs to rerun to
Setup.exe to orient itself to this new environment (BIOS, chipset, CPU,
etc.). In WinXP, we could insert the original CD and do an "in-place
upgrade", also known as a "repair install". That would completely reinstall
the OS itself but leave installed apps and data intact. This is not so easy
in Vista. An added hurdle is that the DVD used to do the repair must be at
least the same SP level as the version currently on the HDD and being
replaced. So you can't use a Vista RTM or SP1 DVD to repair a Vista SP2
installation.

Have you tried booting from the Vista DVD and trying the repair options
there? Probably won't solve this problem, but it's worth a try.

If you must completely reinstall, then backup your data first, but don't
worry about saving your apps (unless they are custom or downloaded from a
site that you can no longer find) or Vista itself. Then reinstall Vista,
make sure it's fully updated, and then reinstall your apps from original
media. Simply having the app files on your HD is not enough; each install
program will need to run so that it can make the proper entries in the new
Vista Registry.

Yes, as you said, it "will take several hours", but that's probably quicker
than looking for a workaround - which you might not find even after days of
searching.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100