MB swap without cleaning HDD, can I do it?

[SteveDeBeave]

I have a rebuild that I'm doing on Saturday. Need to change out a PC Chips board with a ECS. Can I do this without cleaning the hard drive and starting from scratch?
I can't see any reason why not but maybe I'm missing something? Anyone think of a problem that may come up?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[sohcrates]

go into device manager and remove everything under "system devices". these are all the devices associated with your mobo. then shut down, put in the new board, and on boot-up windows will re-detect all your mobo hardware and install the new drivers.

 

[SteveDeBeave]

Cool, thanks Sohcrates! That's the answer I was looking for.

Steve 😉

 

[SteveDeBeave]

Think I should get rid of the IDE ATA controllers in device manager also?

 

[sohcrates]

yeah, you could, but usually windows won't let you remove those. my suggestion is to hit F8 on boot-up and choose "safe mode" then remove system devices and IDE controllers from there.