quick question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
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Steve

Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
 
Steve said:
Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
Click to expand...

It should work, but sometimes drivers for the old motherboard might make
it a pain. If you don't mind using another motherboard with the same
chipsets, that increases your chances of a smooth transition.
 
Steve said:
Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
Click to expand...

quick answer .. yup
 
Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
Click to expand...

Even if you change the processor and motherboard with different models you
can often do a repair install (assuming XP) and it will work fine. You
run into problems when the parts are widely different like going from a
non-HT P4 on an Intel chipset board to a 64bit AMD on an Nforce board.
That would probably need a fresh install of the OS. I wouldn't completely
wipe the drive though - just boot up your PE Disc
<http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/> and move the stuff you want to keep to a
safe folder and delete the others.
 
Steve said:
Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
Click to expand...
Yes,it should boot, but if you are using XP you might have to re-validate.
 
Even if you change the processor and motherboard with different models you
can often do a repair install (assuming XP) and it will work fine. You
run into problems when the parts are widely different like going from a
non-HT P4 on an Intel chipset board to a 64bit AMD on an Nforce board.
That would probably need a fresh install of the OS. I wouldn't completely
wipe the drive though - just boot up your PE Disc
<http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/> and move the stuff you want to keep to a
safe folder and delete the others.
Click to expand...


If you have an OEM copy of XP it's possible that something as small as
a BIOS rev level might trigger re-authorization and since the EULA
says you can't change the mobo you could be out of luck.
 
Al Dykes said:
If you have an OEM copy of XP it's possible that something as small as
a BIOS rev level might trigger re-authorization and since the EULA
says you can't change the mobo you could be out of luck.
Click to expand...
Really? What if you had a defective motherboard and sent it off for
replacement?
 
If you have an OEM copy of XP it's possible that something as small as
a BIOS rev level might trigger re-authorization and since the EULA
says you can't change the mobo you could be out of luck.
Click to expand...

That's no problem. I have a friend with an OEM copy of XP and they
always let him reactivate when he changes the hardware, including mb.
 
Right. MS has let me reactivate even when I changed the motherboard [I'm
using an OEM version of XP].

But, the EULA for the OEM version says the OS is tied to the original set of
hardware => so, per the EULA MS could refuse to reactivate with a
motherboard change - even if it were 'exactly' the same motherboard. [Newer
versions of the same motherboard can have updated drivers which will trigger
the reactivation - been there, done that]

That said, changing the motherboard doesn't have to trigger a reactivation.
Reactivation is trigger if more than 7 of the monitored hardware devices
vote they have been changed [since the last activation]. As I remember, you
can slip past the 7 votes provided you do not change anything other than the
motherboard. MS spells out this explicitly in one of the KB articles.
 
Almost for sure not.

XP seems pretty good at seperating what's installed and physically in the
system vs what's installed but not physically in the system - with the
exception of USB devices. Which is probably an USB issue not XP per se.

You can clean up the installed but not physically in the system through the
Device Manager. But, you need to first set DM to show all the devices
installed but not physically in the system by opening a cmd prompt and
typing set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 ;[press enter]; at the new
line, type compmgmt.msc [press enter].

When the computer management application opens, click on Device Manager in
the left column. In Device Manager, click on View and on Show Hidden
Devices. After clicking on the + signs, the icons for the devices installed
by not physically in the system appear faded. As usual, right click on the
icon and choose 'uninstall'.

But, stay away from Networking devices. The first time I did this, I
uninstalled a faded icon in Networking devices - big problem. Same with
some of the faded icons in Non plug and play devices. But, all the rest
including System Devices I've had no problems after uninstalling any with
faded icons.
 
Steve said:
Let's say that I fried my processor and motherboard but could confirm that
everything else in the case survived undamaged. Could I simply replace them
with the exact same processor and motherboard and boot with the existing HD
without having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS?
Click to expand...

I did this several months ago, except that the mobo and cpu were totally
different!

I was too lazy to consider wiping Win2k so just hacked through it and
hoped it would work, and amazingly, it did. Device Manager had a bunch
of barf, some unidentified and some repeated devices, but liberally
blowing away wrong devices, installing new drivers (VIA 4-in-1 and
related stuff), all the problems went away. I'm usually the first one
to point out MS cruftiness, but I was impressed in this case.
 
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