G33/ICH9DH to G41/ICH7 HDD swap

[RhoXS]

One of our computers is a three year old Dell with an G33/ICH9DH Intel mobo. The integrated video stopped functioning so I am replacing it with an available G41/ICH7 ASUS P5G41-M LE/CSM.

I want to retain the existing W7 install and not rebuild the system as it was just rebuilt with a W7 32 bit clean install a few months ago. Neither my wife or I currently have the time to undertake another clean install.

As a preliminary test, I cloned the existing hard drive and then proved it boots and runs OK on the existing Intel mobo. I then tried using it with the Asus board (now installed in another mostly unused computer). It will not boot. Windows starts and the W7 logo appears. However, before the logo is fully formed, the machine just reboots.

Is there anything I can do to make the HDD that works fine on a G33/ICH9DH board work on a newer G41/ICH7 board?

 

[rolodomo]

Probably a driver for old hardware is hanging windows before windows can automatically rebuild the hardware abstraction layer.

Can you boot into safe mode? If so, boot into windows and remove every driver related to old hardware you can find (video, audio, storage, chipset, etc.) and reboot.

Also, you can move the clone HD back to the old computer and remove hardware specific drivers then shutdown, then try the clone HD again on the new computer.

Do you have an OEM version of windows? If so, that might eventually cause a problem revalidating windows, but maybe not (worth a try anyway).

Edit: you can also buy something like Paragon Backup and Recovery, which will abstract an installed version of windows from a recovery CD/usb.