Upgrading mobo question.

leedogg

Gojyone kawaiiiiiiii!
Joined
3 Mar 2002
Messages
820
To my knowledge, if I'm upgrading my motherboard I have to do a complete reformat of XP...

Is this correct? Are there any ways of upgrading the mobo without having to do an OS reinstall?

I like how my OS is configured now. No problems and everything tweaked the way I want it.
 
If you are staying with the same chipset manufacturer (via, nforce, sis) on the new MB you may be able to get away without the clean install. The purists out there will flame me for that statement and I can't really argue with them...

It is generally a good idea to do the clean install with a new MB but I have upgraded without doing so. NOTE clean install is not a reformat! Reformat will wipe the disk. Clean install will just (hopefully) wipe windows and the registry.

Backup your critical data (vid's, mp3's, game save files and configs) and while you're at it you might want to save any financial or business stuff too...

Try just swapping the boards out, it has worked for me when I stayed within the VIA chipset family. When I went from a VIA to a SIS I was screwed and had to reformat. Too many incompatible drivers.

If you run into problems set the bios to boot off the windows CD and do a new install. If you run into problems even after a windows reinstall then its time to reformat.
 
If you have a special drive controller on the new motherboard(like a SCSI, or RAID card (Highpoint, Promise, etc) I don't know if it can work.

You could try pre-installing drivers, but the one time I tried that it did not work.

Also, I just think it would leave a mess in the registry (I'm guessing but that's my vibe).

If you do reinstall, look into using Norton Ghost to make a series of images. I make one right when the desktop comes up for the first time, followed by several made during the OS setup (app install, tweaks, drivers, etc).

You never know what can happen, and sometimes I just back a few things up and restore an image for that fresh clean feeling.

Lets say you use a messy program like Norton AV or Norton System Works and you want to change to KAV or McAfee. You can restore an image made right before Norton System works was installed, saving a lot of work.

Having an OS setup up the way you like it isn't worth anything unless you have images made to quickly get you back (and system retore is a piece of bloatware crap).
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back