Computer upgrades with windows 7 64 bit

[Tom5572]

I recall having to run a windows repair the last time I upgraded the CPU and motherboard, is the same true with windows 7?

Here is what I have:
Intel core i7 3820 Sandy Bridge 3.6 ghz (3.8 with turbo boost)

ASUS P9X79 motherboard LGA 2011.

Corsair vengeance 16gb SDRAM DDR3 1600.

Your knowledge is appreciated.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I recall having to run a windows repair the last time I upgraded the CPU and motherboard, is the same true with windows 7?

Here is what I have:
Intel core i7 3820 Sandy Bridge 3.6 ghz (3.8 with turbo boost)

ASUS P9X79 motherboard LGA 2011.

Corsair vengeance 16gb SDRAM DDR3 1600.

Your knowledge is appreciated.

I wouldn't know because I routinely do a fresh reinstall when doing major hardware upgrades. I recommend the same.

[Tom5572]

Unfortunately this is not an option. I told the wife we needed to back up her pictures because theold motherboard CPU were going out (frequent BSOD). She never got around to it. Maybe she will listen the next time

[gyrene81]

Unfortunately this is not an option. I told the wife we needed to back up her pictures because theold motherboard CPU were going out (frequent BSOD). She never got around to it. Maybe she will listen the next time

if the system is dead but the drive is still goog, pop that drive into an external enclosure and connect it to another win7 system. might take a few security properties tweaks but you should be able to grab what you want off it.

[guncrasher]

or do an install without reformatting and it may save it to windows. old folder

[Bizman]

If you feel like you could spare some time on the project and you have an extra hard disk, I'd suggest the following:

First make a clone of your HDD. In case something goes wrong you'd still have your valuable data safe. There's free cloning software available in the net, like Clonezilla.
Gyrene's suggestion of connecting the disk as an external drive for copying data into a safe place is also very good. An external exclosure will do the job, but I prefer dedicated Sata/IDE to USB adapters for their versatility for one time jobs.

After you've saved your data, you can safely look what happens with a new motherboard. With luck, you'd only be asked to reauthenticate Windows. Win7 doesn't have the repair install option, but similar results are acquired by making an upgrade install over the existing one. Just make sure that you either have or don't have ServicePack 1 on both your installation disk and HDD.

If your Windows accepts the new components with ease, your next task is to get rid of the old motherboard drivers. My trick to do this is this nice little batch file, plenty of advice on the subject in that thread. Remember to run the batch as an administrator.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Unfortunately this is not an option. I told the wife we needed to back up her pictures because theold motherboard CPU were going out (frequent BSOD). She never got around to it. Maybe she will listen the next time

There's no need to format the drive when reinstalling windows. You can choose to do a fresh install to the same drive over the existing operating system. That way all your files will remain but you'll need to reinstall most programs and system drivers.

Another option is to try to boot the computer with a linux live cd - many times linux is more stable on little bit broken hardware. With that you could burn your pictures to cd.