James said:
I just changed the mother board and cpu on my wife's system. I installed an
Asus A7S8X-MX motherboard with an AMD Duron processor. Now I can't boot the
system. It stops at the screen that asks you if you want to "continue to
start windows normally", or "start windows with your last know confuration
that worked", etc. No matter which choice I choose, the system just
reboots. I tried to boot to the XP CD and the same thing happens.
I changed the heatsink, power supply, reseated the cpu and tried different
ram. No change.
Can someone PLEASE help me?
Thanks.
Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM installations 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
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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