Question about changing motherboards

[Gary]

Hello All,
I have an older computer that runs fine, but is slow (550). I would like to
put a newer motherboard and CPU in. I have assembled new systems before,
but have never upgraded. So, my question is: will this have any impact on
my hard drive data, i.e. will I lose programs or have to reformat the hard
drive? Thanks.

Gary

 

[Dennis Roark]

Hello All,
I have an older computer that runs fine, but is slow (550). I would
like to put a newer motherboard and CPU in. I have assembled new
systems before, but have never upgraded. So, my question is: will
this have any impact on my hard drive data, i.e. will I lose programs
or have to reformat the hard drive? Thanks.

Gary

What OS are you using? If you are using Win XP and the new board has a
different chip set it is likely that XP won't fully boot. However, you
do a "repair install" of XP rather than a fresh install and the data on
your HD as well as all program configurations should remain intact. The
repair install is done by booting from the XP CD. Don't choose Repair
using Recovery Console, but choose install. Then when the install
program detects an existing XP partition you will have the option of
repairing it or doing a fresh install. You select repair by the letter
'R'. However, I would always make a back up of any important data
before changing anything so major as a motherboard. I use Ghost to back
up to a different partition and then burn the ghost image to a CD. But
take some precautions, even though they are likely to be not needed.
The "repair install" works excellently -- have used it several times on
various machines. It does not reformat or otherwise erase your hard
drive.

--
Dennis Roark

(e-mail address removed)
Starting Points:
www.home.earthlink.net/~denro

 

[ToolPackinMama]

What OS are you using? If you are using Win XP and the new board has a
different chip set it is likely that XP won't fully boot.

That's true: if you are going to the same chipset (VIA to VIA) it's not
as drastic as if you are changing chipsets (in my experience).

 

[nope]

I'll tell you point blank that what you want to do can cause endless
headaches - don't migrate your HDD! Simply get the new moba, mem and cpu
and assemble a "new" machine. Slave your old drive to a new one, and please
EXPORT all your mail and mail settings to a mdb or other user-friendly file,
to re-import later. I had a bear of a time with this and M$ Outlook :-/

This is a lot of work and some extra expense, perhaps, but when upgrading
like this it's the way to go. You'll thank yourself, believe me.
..
LOL - I owned a 386 (remember THOSE) machine from 1991 until 1998. I was
forcibly upgraded to a pentium. The guy who owned the local computer store
begged me to upgrade so much, he gave me a new MB and CPU. We startred from
scratch, using all old peripherals from my machine, and he warned me about
this mobo swap stuff. Okay, its not 1998 and hardware has changed a lot,
but a recent upgrade brought this to the fore again and yes, I simply copied
my old drive to folder on a new one.

Just my $0.02

 

[envoy]

Hello All,
I have an older computer that runs fine, but is slow (550). I
would like to put a newer motherboard and CPU in. I have
assembled new systems before, but have never upgraded. So, my
question is: will this have any impact on my hard drive data, i.e.
will I lose programs or have to reformat the hard drive? Thanks.

Gary

No need to format. You can install onto an existing partition. When
recognizes the exist windows installation tell it to install /over/
the old windows (into the same Windows dir). The install may call
this an "upgrade" (even though its the same version) or "repair"
install depending on your Windows version.

Of course you can alway do a "fresh install" without formatting the
partitions. If you have some utility like Partition Magic that lets
you move and resize partition you can make room for a new windows
partition while preserveing your old data. This has both good and bad
aspects:

The good. You get a cleaner install. Upgades or repair dont alway
leave everything working perfectly plus you end up with a lot of
unused files in you system directories that take up a lot of space.
And there is alway some legacy registry setting or driver that make
things work just a little differently than a clean install. (e.g.
cannot copy audio cdrom digitally after "upgrade" but worked fine
after clean install)

The bad. Installing your apps all over gain. A pain. If you have a
full complement of applications and a couple of dozen utilities
(winzip, acrobat reader, etc.) it is probably not worth it unless you
have a few days to kill. But if you just have Office, acrobat and
winzip then save your data and do a clean install.