Do I need to reformat HD when upgrade mobo???

[rbownes]

I have an Asus P2B with a Cel-633 on Asus Slocket adapter. I works ok but i need to run it at 1.8v. I would like to upgrade my mobo to Asus CUSL2. My hard drive is full of stuff and I dont want to reformat and reload everything if I dont have to.

Can I do this without reformatting? Can I tweak the registry somehow?

Thanks in advance.

PS. I have Win98, Riva TNT 16mb vid, 64mb PC-100ram, Diamond300mx soundcard, Maxtor 13gb 7200 hd, Acer CD-RW, Sony Dvd.

 

[DaCypher]

I have upgraded a machine from an old p200 motherboard (forget what the chipset was called back then) to an Asus P2B-LS without formatting. I think I was running Win95 (yikes) back then and I didn't have a problem. I remember that Windows auto detected new hardware (PCI bus controller, etc), and it did it's thing without a hitch. I'm not sure if this helps a lot because you are upgrading from different chipsets but I don't think it would be a huge problem. Just make sure to keep your old motherboard around until you get the new one working.

 

[rbownes]

Hmmm, so it might just be like any other PNP upgrade.........Win98 will just detect the change? Thanks, man.

I thought I read somewhere that you need to delete some registry setting and then put in the new board and then the registry will reset with the new settings.

It is a new chipset (BX to i815) so maybe I will have to reformat the hd?

 

[KR]

Windows should detect the new devices and controllers of the motherboard and install new drivers. I've gone between Intel and Via chipsets and it sems to work out after a bit of driver loading.

 

[Shack70]

You can do it, but I would got inot safemode before swapping MotherBoards and delete all the Motherboard Hardware from the system property menu. Windows will autodetect the new MB when you start up again(with the new board) and just install the drivers it ask for. You should be ok then. Also remove any hardware you are not putting in the new setup, like if the new board has built in sound and you had a soundcard. Delete the soundcard and it will intall the new sound system when it installs the MB drivers.

 

[Davegod75]

Yes you'll be fine. but any installbility afterwords I would link to not having a clean install. It's always good to go with the clean install.

 

[Confused]

if ur changing many of the cards etc, go into the Device Manager, and delete all the old cards b4 u change everything over. then when u start up with new bits, then Windows will have no knowledge of the old stuff, and so ur system will be a little cleaner. i think, but i'm not 100% sure, if u delete all of the floppy and hard disk controllers etc, and everything to do with the mobo, then Windows should detect all the new stuff without any probs.

 

[Supradude]

Go PNP! , i switched from a BE6-2 to a SA6R recently (abouta month ago) and all i did was change the boards, upon startup everything self detected in WinME and all i had to do was reinstall a few device drivers... woohoo! rock solid...

If there are instabilities of bad linkage problems, try re-installing the OS over the previous one before clean installing if you want to save time...

 

[thornc]

Read the following link....the interesting part is the middle of the page! Its the tip
from David Glover..

Ghost Tips that should work in this case!!!

I've tried it myself, and it worked for me.....but remenber the safest thing is to do a clean
install.....

 

[garrison]

i've just replaced my bx with a cusl2-c this afternoon.

winMe: fine.
win2k: cant access to the partition ANYMORE!!

GRRRRRRrr



p3 1ghz, culs2-c, alpha pep, psu on the floor of the case

 

[Neos]

Well, I went to Bud's Troubleshooter ...and got the skinny on reloading Win 98 SE only. I deleted the Enum key in the registry, and deleted system.dat & user.dat. I had the install cabs on my hard drive beforehand, so I then rebooted to DOS, and reloaded the OS from there. When it came back up after installing, it reloaded all the drivers.
I had to reinstall a few programs, and had a couple of drivers I had to fix ...but all is well now. Lots better than formating ...IMHO.
Neos