Motherboard Upgrade with Installed XP Pro

[Martineau Gauda]

Hi,

Upgrading K6 450 motherboard to Asus P4C800-E, 2.8 P4 processor,
motherboard. Have XP Pro installed on system now and want to keep all my
programs and settings. What is the best way to proceed to just have XP
upgrade for the motherboard?

Many thanks

Martineau Gauda
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Keith Alger]

Hi,

Upgrading K6 450 motherboard to Asus P4C800-E, 2.8 P4 processor,
motherboard. Have XP Pro installed on system now and want to keep all my
programs and settings. What is the best way to proceed to just have XP
upgrade for the motherboard?

Thats quite an upgrade! Personally I have my doubts that if you just swap
in the motherboard and upgrade to XP that is going to at all stable. In my
oppinion the best way to proceed would be to audit all the software you are
using, and make sure you can find all your install disks so you can
re-intall from scratch. Once you completed your audit (and before you add
any new hardware) find some way to make a safe backup of your entire system,
and make sure you (and not just some local tech-head) can extract individual
files at will from those backups. Now you can upgrade your PC, re-install
your software, restore your documents, and when you need to retrieve
individual settings files from your backup.

For myself, if I were to lose a program disk that would be a shame, but to
lose certain documents I have would be a disaster.

Keith Alger

 

[sheer]

Don't waste your time, preparation is the key back up all your critical
files and have copies of all the programmes you wish to install.

Nothing more frustrating then losing data trying to get it to work after
brain surgery.

 

[DaveW]

If you change motherboards using XP, you HAVE to reformat the harddrive and
do a fresh install of XP if you do not want to get nasty Registry errors.
Sorry.

 

[Tocapet]

Run file & settings transfer wizard and save all your settings. Then back
up all your data to another drive or partition. Back up the stuff file &
settings transfer wizard gives you. Then you can do a format & clean
install. After you get it all up and running, reinstall all your proggies,
then run file & settings transfer wizard again and recover your preferences

Tocapet

 

[Bob Knowlden]

You'll get recommendations to do a clean installation of XP, reformatting
the disk. It's probably a good idea.

However, you can probably live with a repair install:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

"How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP"

In brief: change the machine's BIOS settings to boot from the CD drive
first. Boot from the XP CD. Choose to install rather than opening the repair
console. Under install, choose to repair the existing installation.

This ought to preserve most of your programs and settings. (You may find
that some applications need to be re-installed to run properly.) However,
you will lose everything installed through Windows Update. If that includes
Service Pack 1, and you have a CD burner, I recommend that you prepare a
copy of the XP CD with SP1 "slipstreamed" onto it:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?object=article.cfm&id=160

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be altered to avoid spam. Replace nkbob with bobkn.