Swapping a mother board

[The Fugitive]

Normally when I go about building a box I do the whole thing. Once I get to the point that adding more ram, or no longer can get a faster cpu I start at the bottom and go whole hog  

My wifes computer on the other hand  

Hers is a singe cpu on an old MB the video is onboard and only has a AGP slot for upgrade. Normally I'd just junk the whole thing and start over. How ever in the interest of saving money on a computer that she plays facebook games on and does email with some shopping on the side, I have a question or two.

If I use parts from my sons old box as well as my old box to put something together for her can I just swap the hard drive over? I have an older MB with a dual core CPU on it, a couple sticks of ram and a PCI card laying around. Her box, and power supply (500 watt) and hard drive are good. Will I have to reinstall windows on the HD? If not how much trouble will the old drivers/hardware info be to clear out to make room for the new stuff?

Should I just bite the bullet and buy her a new box?

[MaSonZ]

the OS should be good to stay if her HDD is still good, dont see why it should interfere. the only issue you may have there is that youll get a notice that the hardware on the computer has changed significantly and you need to upgrade windows or reinstall it or something. have a P/S2 mouse and keyboard handy. USB may not work on that window for some reason...

as for the other stuff i cant say. only reason i have input on the HDD is due to recent expierence. dont quote my word for truth though, still new to everything

[guncrasher]

you are gonna have to reinstall the os when swapping mobo's.  I had to do it.  make sure you have the key.  I installed my os on a brand new computer but that was an xp and when xp was still being serviced.  hope it is still the same.

semp

[TequilaChaser]

you are gonna have to reinstall the os when swapping mobo's.  I had to do it.  make sure you have the key.  I installed my os on a brand new computer but that was an xp and when xp was still being serviced.  hope it is still the same.

semp

yep, if you are dealing with anything older than Vista or windows 7, I would say you will most likely have to do a reinstall of the OS ( going from experience with windowsXP and older OS's )

now, I have lucked up 2 or 3 times back using winXP and once with win98se..... but I think the main reason I lucked up had more to do with the old MB & new MB I was converting over to was made by the same manufacturer and their was not that big of a time span between the 2 models........ I just had to reload/update some MB drivers  and sound/lan drivers

the only way you will know if it works or not is trial & error.......... there is a possibility that it will boot up........

running a registery cleaner can sometimes find the drivers and the unused registery code input , so you could get rid of the old stuff ( or just look for the drivers that the old MB used, search them out and erase them maybe )

Vista  and Windows 7 is so much easier to work with in this department when going from one MB(PC) to another with the same HD....... doing your research/homework before you begin and knowing exactly what will not be needed that was left over from the old MB drivers/registry code, etc....  is your main problem to resolve.......

if the new MB ppicks up that an OS exists, their is a good chance it will boot up....... 

can not forget that the MBR ( Master Boot Record ) and there is another file, an  .ini file ( sorry I can not think of its name at this moment ) that will also possibly give you a fit


...... maybe do a "windows transfer", if you can get a new hard drive????? 


hope this helps


TC

[gyrene81]

i've only successfully done it twice, but there may be a way to use your wife's hdd with the new mobo without having to do a full reinstall. it's a headache to do and if that new mobo has sata connections, you're going to have to set the bios to make them ide compatible, even then there is no guarantee.

if you have a copy of symantec ghost and know how to use sysprep, you could create an image of the existing windows install, but you will have to get all of the drivers for the new mobo installed prior to proceeding.

or if you can get the drivers for the new mobo inserted to the existing windows install (either slipstream or actual install), you may be able to get away with just using sysprep to move the drive over without doing a full reinstall.

with either method you may need to re-enter the serial number upon reboot because of the way sysprep works. you may also need the windows xp disc on first boot to perform a fixboot and fixmbr if that situation occurs.

[Getback]

Like others, more than likely you will have to reinstall the OS. However you can try it and see if it boots. If so then just install the MB drivers. Often though it will just loop.

Good luck!

[Bizman]

I have done it with XP successfully several times, using various brands having different chipsets. Sometimes I have had to do a repair install, but more often not. A couple of times only a clean install has worked. As said, you'd better have the key and good ole PS2 input devices.

After having swapped the mobos with success, you certainly would like to get rid of the old mobo's drivers. My tool for the task is a simple batch file. Works at least with XP, not sure about newer OSes. Copy the following lines to a Notepad file, rename it to "yourchoice.bat" (without quotes) and when the Device Manager opens, choose Show/Show hidden devices. Every device that is not connected will show grey and you should be quite safe to remove them.

@echo off
devmgr_show_nonpresent_device s=1
start devmgmt.msc


Off topic: Here's some extra dots for those who like to have more than one of them between sentences: ...

[TequilaChaser]

Thanks Bizman...  I needed those, was running short on them.......

and that was it gyrene, the boot file I couldn't think of before   

I like that batch file idea, Bizman 


Good Luck, Fugi


TC

[Bizman]

Hehe, here in Finland we have an old saying: That dog yelps, whom the stick hits. Nothing personal, appreciate your comments here.

And about that batch, it's a mixture of pure Microsoft stuff. The middle row was originally intended either to be set permanently or used in the Run command box, but I needed portability for my work.

[Tigger29]

Out of eight tries I've had two that were successful in "swapping" the hard drive.  Of those two one had constant BSOD issues (which was fixed after a clean XP install).  It just all depends on how much has changed especially when it comes down to the motherboard's chipset and processor.  The more different the replacement is the less of a chance there is of it working.

Personally I'd plan on formatting and installing clean even if it does work.  Don't want the wife crying every time something doesn't work perfectly! 

[Reschke]

Tried it about a dozen times now and only been able to get a successful change one time. I have tried it with every different version of Windows.

[Bizman]

A little more information about the batch I mentioned above: I have now tested it in Vista and Win7, both 32 bit, with success. There's one thing to be noticed, though: You must run it as administrator to see nonpresent devices. Otherwise it will only show current devices. I tried to find a way to tick "Always run as admin" in the properties, but that option was greyed out.