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Is it safe to upgrade/rebuild PC without formatting and reinstalling XP from scratch?

W

WAZ

Golden Member
I'm going from this:

- MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nVidia nForce3 chipset)
- AMD FX-60 (skt 939)
- 2GB DDR-400 RAM
- ATI x1950 Pro (AGP)

to this:

- Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (AMD 790X/SB750 chipsets)
- AMD X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma (skt AM2+)
- 4GB DDR2-1066 RAM
- ATI HD 4870 (PCIe - Sapphire 1GB Toxic)


Now I was hoping to uninstall all my old drivers (video, sound, nForce chipset) and remove the hardware (video, ethernet, USB, etc) from Device Manager. Then break everything down, rebuild with the new parts, and let XP find the new hardware with driver discs in hand.

Will this be okay, or am I just setting myself up for registry and orphan driver conflicts, and/or other problems? If it's going to be more hassle than it's worth, I have my files backed up and CAN format and re-install everything from scratch... I just didn't want to if I didn't have to.
 
Is there a lot of leftover junk from the old components? And would I be risking data loss, or more Windows/driver errors or instability?

I may just have to suck it up. It's not so much reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows... it's reinstalling ALL the MS updates, Office, Adobe, my games, everything under the sun, that I wanted to avoid. I really don't want to do all that, but it's obviously not worth being stubborn if it's going to cause problems. Sad.
 
it should work.
might want to do a repair install of Windows XP after new mobo installed.

and reinstall windows updates.

the potential issue is that when you install windows it self-selects and installs the appropriate hardware abstraction layer depending on what hardware it detect during the install.

But I don't think that'll cause you any trouble when you move between those two particular cpus. The hal that Windows would self-select for both of those cpus should be ACPI Multiprocessor PC (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), so what you've already got should be good to go.

It'll just be new windows updates, drivers, maybe a repair install or maybe not.

edit: Oh, and also please read this.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I was going to try the Plug-N-Pray (while uninstalling all old devices and drivers) and/or the Setup/Repair method and hope for the best... but after reading more I've decided not to risk it. It's a pain in the ass to reinstall all my programs, games, etc, but not as big of a pain as trying to recover data and fix a system that has a bunch of problems after a massive hardware swap.

Sysprep sounds like it could work, but may be more trouble than just doing a plain, fresh reinstall. So I think I'm going to suck it up and format tonight. Thanks for the tips. 🙂
 
No offense intended, but:

You're being lazy and you're going to pay for it. Doing a clean install of Windows is not that complicated or risky if you PREPARE and RESEARCH first.

Use nLite and slipstream the latest Service Pack as well as most of the drivers you'll need into your OS CD. An hour of work slipstreaming will save you many hours of troubleshooting/reloading in the future. FWIW, I'm still running a 32-bit copy of XP Pro from 2001 that has been slipstreamed over the years with all the service packs. As I change motherboards I start with a clean copy of the CD with the service pack. I then add drivers and whatever other updates I can. If you're willing to do a bit of research/downloading work, you can literally create an OS CD with every single applicable update MS has released up to today.

Now, AFAIK, you cannot slipstream Office or updates. But, immediately after loading the OS, you load Office, load SP3 and then do an Update check. A few downloads/reboots later and you're up-to-date. Right after that, make a Ghost image of you System drive and you're really good to go.

If you don't know about nLite, check it out here.

It's got a bit of a learning curve but I figured it out in an hour. If I can, you can. 🙂
 
No offense taken, but I don't think you read my last post. 😉 I am fully planning on formatting and doing a clean install of Windows tonight.

I wasn't concerned about that being risky or complicated anyway; I've built PC's and reinstalled Windows countless times. I was initially just hoping to avoid having to reinstall everything -- all my games, apps, settings, etc -- but said in my previous post that I'm just going to suck it up and do a fresh install.
 
Damn. I hate it when I own myself. 😱 I know that you know I was only trying to help. After all, you DID sign up the day after I did. 😀 Good luck; I hope it all goes well for you. 🙂
 
Most of my systems are so complicated that I rarely bother with spending days of fresh install.

I back up the old drive over my Network to another PC using Acronis True Image.

Build the new system and ghost back from the tib file.

I rarely have any problem do it this way. Problems usually occur because of too dramatic change in chipset, and here and there might be that few utilities have to be deleted or adjusted.

In general this "scarrrrreeee" of install upon existing system is overly exaggerated. Like some other issues that are prevalent on enthusiasts forum that mainly geared making enthusiasts different than others and have very little to do with technology (E.g., thinking that using a 1000 Watt PSU on a system that needs 400W makes the computer better)..
 
i remember once swapping 440BX boards and having to do a fresh install. i've also upgraded across generations and chipmakers (amd to intel) and not had a problem.

i've never really found any consistency in doing mobo swap, it's been hit and miss for me on multiple occasions. am i the only one?
 
Not doing a fresh install won't make the computer explode, probably. However, a fresh install is just plain better. I find a fresh install also performs better, until you fill the comp with crap anyways.
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
Damn. I hate it when I own myself. 😱 I know that you know I was only trying to help. After all, you DID sign up the day after I did. 😀 Good luck; I hope it all goes well for you. 🙂
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's all good. 🙂 And even though you owned yourself, you helped me anyway... putting together an install disc with nLite right now.

If nothing else, having my original XP product key, etc, all automated with the "unattended install", along with including service pack 3, will save me a TON of time checking back on the computer and doing a thousand Automatic Update reboots. So I do appreciate it, signup cousin.
 
Originally posted by: JackMDS

<CUT OUT> Like some other issues that are prevalent on enthusiasts forum that mainly geared making enthusiasts different than others and have very little to do with technology (E.g., thinking that using a 1000 Watt PSU on a system that needs 400W makes the computer better)..
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha!

 
I'll go on record as saying that nLite rules.

I didn't get into every little detail and downloading every past update (I'm okay letting Automatic Updates grab and install a few lists of them to get me up to date). But simply slipstreaming SP3, doing Unattended Install with my product key and all my info, and setting a handful of services and components to be disabled, took me about 45 minutes upfront and saved me an evening of sitting in front of XP and rebooting a couple thousand times. 🙂

I didn't realize it was THAT easy and automated until this morning. I fell asleep while Setup was formatting my hard drive last night; figured I'd have to go through some of the setup/install process today, as all I had done was select which partition to use and left it. Instead, I turned on my monitor to find a shiny new "Bliss" desktop and a fully-installed XP + SP3. Sweet.
 
I agree nlite is awesome when you need to do a fresh install.

I don't think you necessarily had to, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
 
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