Any hope.......Change mobo without re-installing everything?

[David_L6]

A friend of mine brought his computer by a little while ago. Seems he managed to mess up some of the pins in his motherboard (an Intel D975XBX2) while changing processors. (No..... I don't know how!) He was hoping I knew a way to repair the damage but I can't see well enough to do anything with those tiny pins. Anyhow..... We just ordered another D975XBX2 board and he paid for next day air shipping to get back up and running ASAP. I've never tried to change just the motherboard without re-formatting and doing a fresh install. He has a lot of stuff on his computer and doesn't want to re-install everything. Is that possible or are we going to have to start from scratch?

 

[omg its nlm]

Plug it all in and boot it up.

 

[ray_gillespie]

I changed from a Nforce 3 mobo with an Athlon64 3500+ CPU to my current MSI 975X mobo with a Core 2 Duo CPU, totally new RAM (DDR to DDR2) and graphics card too. When I booted up for the first time I had my HDs the wrong way round and accidently booted from the one with XP on it. It booted up with no problems and just needed drivers installing!

I wiped the thing pretty quickly though it's gotta be clean install every time for me

 

[_kC_]

if the board is the same model... nothing to do, just boot it up

if it was a different motherboad model just do a repair instal of windows

boot from your original cd, when it lists your partitions and previous operating system, press R..

it will prompt for the xp key, and after installation ask you to re-activate windows (you may have to use the phone option as the hardware has changed significatnly)..

then instal your drivers from the new motherboard cd... and run windows updates again..
job done

 

[ray_gillespie]

Oh yeah I didn't read your post fully lol. If it's the same, KC is right, you shouldn't notice any difference.

 

[David_L6]

That's great! I've never tried anything like that and didn't have a clue what will happen once the new mobo arrives. (I usually never miss a chance to re-format and do a fresh install.)

Thanks guys. I knew I could get the straight scoop here.

 

[LeeJend]

Windows activation being what it is...

Before you boot off the new MB stick his HD in an external enclosure and back up his music, liscences and anything else he doesn't want to risk.

Then
Run VOL from the DOS prompt to get a current VolumeID on his HD it will look like:

6407-32DB

Then read it again in his system. If they are not the same use volumeID.exe to change it back to the old number.

Then make a back up copy of his wpa.dbl file and replace the repair install with the old one.

These steps may cut down on activation hassles and may avoid phone re-activation completely. The new MB will have a new MAC address which Windows weigts heavily in requiring phone activation.