Installing new motherboard need help

[Jack]

At present I am running a Asus mother board with Pentium II 350 MHz, but
want to upgrade to a Pentium IV. I have WindowsXP Home with lots of programs
and everything is working great. I Image my C drive every week with Acronis
True Image and want to put my OS and files back to where they were before
the mother board change. I understand I need to use Sysprep.exe, but have no
idea how to make this change without loosing everything including OS. I have
extracted Sysprep.exe and have it on a floppy. Will the new mother board be
recognized by XP?. How do I use Sysprep? Any help would be appreciated.
Jack

 

[Vanguard]

At present I am running a Asus mother board with Pentium II 350 MHz,
but want to upgrade to a Pentium IV. I have WindowsXP Home with lots
of programs and everything is working great. I Image my C drive every
week with Acronis True Image and want to put my OS and files back to
where they were before the mother board change. I understand I need to
use Sysprep.exe, but have no idea how to make this change without
loosing everything including OS. I have extracted Sysprep.exe and have
it on a floppy. Will the new mother board be recognized by XP?. How do
I use Sysprep? Any help would be appreciated.
Jack

Your image won't work after restoring it because the motherboard
changed. You can try saving the image (with the old motherboard), swap
out the motherboard, restore the image (using bootable rescue floppies
or the image CDs since the first one might be bootable), and then reboot
and use the bootable Windows installation CD to perform a Repair to get
the OS to use the new motherboard. However, you will probably still
have to install the mobo-specific chipset driver package (if it's not an
Intel mobo). In this scenario, SysPrep is not used (nor do I think it
accomodates changes in motherboards since you would instead use a
different image with SysPrep that matched the hardware to which you were
installing the OS).

 

[Anna]

Your image won't work after restoring it because the motherboard changed.
You can try saving the image (with the old motherboard), swap out the
motherboard, restore the image (using bootable rescue floppies or the
image CDs since the first one might be bootable), and then reboot and use
the bootable Windows installation CD to perform a Repair to get the OS to
use the new motherboard. However, you will probably still have to install
the mobo-specific chipset driver package (if it's not an Intel mobo). In
this scenario, SysPrep is not used (nor do I think it accomodates changes
in motherboards since you would instead use a different image with SysPrep
that matched the hardware to which you were installing the OS).

Jack:
As Vanguard has pointed out, a simple change of motherboards does not call
for the sysprep procedure. After you install your new motherboard including
whatever drivers are necessary, it's possible the system *will* boot without
further ado. There's no way that I know of to tell you if it will, but in a
fair number of cases we have found the system will boot following a
motherboard change without the need of a Repair install. Understand that the
Activation process will probably still be necessary in this situation
although even here it's not a certainty.

But the likelihood is that you will have to perform a Repair install as
Vanguard has indicated. It's a relatively simple process and is usually
effective. If you don't know how to undertake a Repair install, do a Google
search on this topic and you'll find a number of sites that give
step-by-step instructions. Make sure you back up any important or critical
files before undertaking the Repair install.

There is, however, an alternate process that doesn't entail the Repair
install that you may wish to consider re your motherboard change...

Here are the general steps, but refer to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125 for the
precise details:
1. In your present machine with the old motherboard, start Windows.
2. After the system boots, insert your XP installation CD in your CD/DVD-ROM
drive.
3. In the Windows Setup window, click "Upgrade (Recommended)" in the
"Installation Type" list and click Next.
4. Follow the screen instructions until the computer begins to restart.
5. Just as the computer begins to restart, power down the computer.
6. Remove the old motherboard and install the new one.
7. Power up the computer. The "upgrade" will continue.
8. After the "upgrade" has completed, you will, of course, need to install
any motherboard drivers as well as hotfixes previously installed and any
service packs. Activation will also be possibly needed.

We've had a limited amount of experience with the above procedure and it
seems to work just fine.
Anna

 

[Don Burnette]

At present I am running a Asus mother board with Pentium II 350 MHz,
but want to upgrade to a Pentium IV. I have WindowsXP Home with lots
of programs and everything is working great. I Image my C drive every
week with Acronis True Image and want to put my OS and files back to
where they were before the mother board change. I understand I need
to use Sysprep.exe, but have no idea how to make this change without
loosing everything including OS. I have extracted Sysprep.exe and
have it on a floppy. Will the new mother board be recognized by XP?.
How do I use Sysprep? Any help would be appreciated. Jack

Your keeping the same hard drive right?

Prior to shutting down your system with the old motherboard for the last
time, go in device manager and remove your motherboard drivers.

Shut down the system, and put the new board in.

Immediately upon booting with the new motherboard, go into the bios ( do NOT
let windows load), and set it to boot from cd-rom. With your XP cd in the cd
drive, exit the bios and let it start to reboot. When prompted, press a key
to continue booting from the cd-rom. At the first screen, do NOT select to
repair with recovery console, go to new install. Then point to your existing
XP, and press R to repair it.

Please note, if your existing XP install is SP2, and your XP cd is pre-sp2,
you will want to do a search for Auto Streamer and create a slipstreamed XP
with SP2.

After the repair install is finished, install the new motherboard drivers,
then grab your windows updates.


Should work fine, I have replaced 3 motherboards using XP in this same
manner.

However, it is always prudent to create backups of any important data files
you would not want to lose if something did go wrong.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

At present I am running a Asus mother board with Pentium II 350 MHz, but
want to upgrade to a Pentium IV. I have WindowsXP Home with lots of programs
and everything is working great. I Image my C drive every week with Acronis
True Image and want to put my OS and files back to where they were before
the mother board change. I understand I need to use Sysprep.exe, but have no
idea how to make this change without loosing everything including OS. I have
extracted Sysprep.exe and have it on a floppy. Will the new mother board be
recognized by XP?. How do I use Sysprep? Any help would be appreciated.
Jack

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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