upgrading to new motherboard

  • Thread starter Thread starter tooly
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tooly

sheese, thought I'd find this question pretty regular here, but can't find
any threads on it anywhere. Search of knowledge base didn't turn up what
I'm needing either. Hard to believe.

I'm upgrading to a new motherboard (and cpu) and want to know what to expect
when I 'transfer' the hard disk over containing winXP. Will it not identify
the mobo as 'wrong'...and any new or added peripherals, like an added 80gig
second harddisk as problematic?

This is an 'upgrade' version of XP, not standalone. What I'd really like to
do is transfer the OS over to the new 80 gig hard drive, keeping the old 40
gig as the backup...but knowing XP and all it's hardware validation mess,
probably not worth the problems I'd encounter (?).

So, any techies out there who might step me through what to do on this?

This has to be a common question...right? Why not in MS knowledge base I
wonder?
 
tooly said:
I'm upgrading to a new motherboard (and cpu) and want to know what to expect
when I 'transfer' the hard disk over containing winXP. Will it not identify
the mobo as 'wrong'...and any new or added peripherals, like an added 80gig
second harddisk as problematic?
This is an 'upgrade' version of XP, not standalone. What I'd really like to
do is transfer the OS over to the new 80 gig hard drive, keeping the old 40
gig as the backup...but knowing XP and all it's hardware validation mess,
probably not worth the problems I'd encounter (?).
So, any techies out there who might step me through what
Click to expand...
to do on this?

I'm not a techie but the following is is my experience.

I removed the old mob, installed the new one. Turned on the
system and WinXP (Home) naturally complained. I was directed
to do a repair installation, for which the qualifying media
in my case was an OEM version of WinXP. The repair
installation went off without a hitch and the next time I
rebooted the system, WinXP was fine. Well, almost without a
hitch. Due to a mistake on my part I had confusing multiple
user structures with old and newly created users, all of
whom were me. (As I said, this was entirely my fault.) I
lived with this for a while but eventually it got so
annoying that a few days later I did a clean format and
reinstallation and everything went off just fine. It took me
2-3 days to reinstall all my software--which, I should add,
worked fine so far as I could tell after the repair
installation.

A couple of months later, I upgraded my HD to a much bigger
Seagate. The new drive was to be the boot drive and the old
one the slave drive. Seagate provided a wizard that
partitioned and formatted the drive and relocated all my
data and programs etc to the new drive. I was very sceptical
about this but it went off surprisingly well. Once the dust
cleared, everything was working fine--until I decided to
clean out the slave drive so I could use it for backup.
Suddenly many of the programs that the wizard had relocated
to the new drive wouldn't work. The problem it seemed was
that these programs were still retrieving their modules from
the old drive. The locations had somehow been "hard-coded"
into the programs. After dicking around with this for a
while I did the only thing I could: Once again I did a clean
format and reinstallation etc.

YMMV.
 
Thanks guys, you have been most helpful. I knew I'd get Mr. Macklin's post
as I figured my search was inadequate...just had to be, since this must be a
common question. Actually, forgot to do a google and only searched the NG's
and MSKB and my web search engine, not google...but I didn't find it in the
MSKB...again must have been my search words [hmm...things like 'upgrading
motherboard' or 'transfering hard disk' only got me returns about upgrading
to XP from past windows versions? go figure]. Ah well...I'm sure others can
use this thread though.
 
It is often in how the question is asked that matters most.
The proper words in Google and using Google for site
searches. Besides that you need to be careful, using your
real email address can get you a lot of spam.

Have a good day, didn't mean to be mean.

Thanks for calling me "Mr. Macklin"


--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


| Thanks guys, you have been most helpful. I knew I'd get
Mr. Macklin's post
| as I figured my search was inadequate...just had to be,
since this must be a
| common question. Actually, forgot to do a google and only
searched the NG's
| and MSKB and my web search engine, not google...but I
didn't find it in the
| MSKB...again must have been my search words [hmm...things
like 'upgrading
| motherboard' or 'transfering hard disk' only got me
returns about upgrading
| to XP from past windows versions? go figure]. Ah
well...I'm sure others can
| use this thread though.
|
|
|
 
Also, I would like to note that you can use the File and Settings
Transfer Utility on the XP CD. When you put your XP CD in, click
additional tasks, then File and Settings Transfer. It will back up all
of your data and programs to wherever you want to store it. I would just
make a folder on your harddrive, under say C:\, and back it all up. Now
do a clean install onto your new harddrive and once that is done, use
the same utility on the XP CD to put all of your data and programs back
on. This keeps all settings, registry entries, documents, etc. Really
neat and simple program ;)

Nathan McNulty
 
Greetings --

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM installations
and licenses 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

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also 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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having both at once. - RAH
 
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