Jonathan said:
I am upgrading my motherboard, cpu, Ram, and video card and my computer
will not load into windows after. Is there a way to get windows xp to
recognize the hardware changes without a reinstall? Do I need to go to add
hardware or something? How do you change a main peice of hardware without a
reinstall?
When I put the new hardware in there is a blue screen that says windows
could not be looaded to prevent damage but no specific error was given. I
think it is looking for my old hardware though.
I don't want to reinstall because I have 80 gigs worth of programs
installed. It would literally take days to put them all back. Any ideas?
Thanks for the help.
I have used the following method twice with complete success.
This is a copy and paste from a previous post by Bruce Hildebrand:
Quote:
"First: I never recommend installing an operating system over the top of
another (even itself) Many times you will hose your internet (by loading
older Internet explorer files over new) and there may be other files (like
direct x) that have been updated in your current windows and it can never
help to load older software over the top of newer.
Second If you must load an operating system "over the top", uninstall all
anti virus software and every version of internet explorer listed in control
panel. you'll need to reboot after each one and continue uninstalling until
none are listed. Uninstall any hardware drivers listed in control panel,
this is very important if you will be changing hardware. You may not be
able to get the old drivers and software out unless the hardware is in the
machine. (ATI drivers are notorious for this)
Now as to the NEED to reinstall: It is rarely necessary to reinstall.
Windows ME will rebuild the hardware enumeration and generally work fine.if
you want to, after all your drivers are installed, boot in safe mode and go
into device manager and remove the old hardware that is still listed (dont
remove any hardware that is installed).
Windows 2000 and Windows XP are a different critter. If you still have the
old hardware in place, create and merge the mergeide.reg files from the
knowledge base articles 271965 and 314082 respectively. Then your system
will boot on the new hardware. Your keyboard and mouse may not work
immediately, since the hardware will have to enumerate. If they dont work
after a few minutes, reset the machine and boot again. eventually windows
will find all the new hardware and work fine. There are a few other ways to
accomplish the same thing but this is by far the easiest.
If you have already changed the hardware (and you cant reconnect to the old
hardware to do the registry merge) Its much more complicated. You may be
able to boot to the repair console and stop the IDE drivers that were
installed from starting.
Then the system will boot and re-enumerate the IDE drivers. Alternatively
find another motherboard with IDE drivers similar to the old motherboard and
try booting from that.
Failing that, you will have to do a repair, but that doesn't guarantee
success. you may repair windows only to find an inaccessible boot device.
Unfortunately if you reinstall, you generally loose all your installed
software too since I don;t know of a way to force an "upgrade" from the CD
Boot or the DOS Prompt.
Hope this helps, let me know how it turned out.
--
--
Bruce Hildebrand
Associate Expert
Expert Zone -
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
End Quote.
