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Mobo swap in XP -- problems to be expected?

F

friedpie

Senior member
I was watching tech TV's The Screen Savers last week when the subject of mobo swaps came up. Leo and Patrick both said that mobo changes on an XP system often times don't work. That is, it won't boot, and a reinstall of XP is the only thing to fix it, or something along those lines.

They said they have had that problem a lot there when swapping mobos on XP systems. Anyone know for sure?

Thanks
 
every one i've tryed was either unstable - unbootable after swaping the mb. just plan on reinstalling.
good luck
 
Originally posted by: friedpie
I was watching tech TV's The Screen Savers last week when the subject of mobo swaps came up. Leo and Patrick both said that mobo changes on an XP system often times don't work. That is, it won't boot, and a reinstall of XP is the only thing to fix it, or something along those lines.

They said they have had that problem a lot there when swapping mobos on XP systems. Anyone know for sure?

Thanks
Click to expand...
XP uses the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) to know what hardware is there and how it works. Any major change (like a mobo swap) completely upsets the balance of the HAL. The best thing to do is swap the board and then boot off the winXP CD and go through the motions of installing. When it asks if you are going to do a fresh install or a repair (about 5-10 min into the install routine- not at the beginning) choose repair. It will the re-install the OS with all your installed apps still there. You will have to re-install any patches or service packs though. This will get you up and running fairly fast.

The best solution is a fresh install, but then you will have to install all the apps all over again.

 
I have put in two motherboard's after XP was installed im my personal pc and had to format and install to get them to work. The repair option for me did not work! Also followed the FAQ found at anandtedk forums for mb swap, again it did not work for me! This is the only thing I HATE about XP! A royal pain in the a**. Good luck!
 
Originally posted by: HdwGuy
I have put in two motherboard's after XP was installed im my personal pc and had to format and install to get them to work. The repair option for me did not work! Also followed the FAQ found at anandtedk forums for mb swap, again it did not work for me! This is the only thing I HATE about XP! A royal pain in the a**. Good luck!
Click to expand...
There is no need to format the drive. Just have XP install into the original directory and it will deltree that directory first.
 
I've done about 5, all worked great!

You dont go into the repair console at the beginning of the install, but later on when it detects your OS and asks if you want to repair or replace it. Choose repair.

IronWoode described it perfectly.
 
Chalk this whole mess up to MS and their decision to use the hardware as a copy protection measure. Go write them a letter and let them know that since you are not an idiot when it comes to computers, you like to change/upgrade your hardware every few months. And that now as a result you also need to reinstall their OS each time you do it.

Well now that I got the rant out of the way, its probably best that you reinstall the OS if you change your motherboard anyway. I have changed my motherboard about 8 times now and have always seen a performance hit if I did not wipe the OS and reinstall it. Too many things are install/configured based on the MB chipset. Its just best to reinstall to fix all the problems. You might be able to just do a recovery install, but I havn't actually tried that, simply because it was usually time for me to wipe the HD anyway and reinstall from scratch, but since I keep current backups of all my data, I never mind doing this. Takes me about 4 hours to completely wipe my drive (low level format) and reinstall and recover my data. I tend to do this once every 6-8 months just to really clean up the HD, cause windows defrag sucks, and I don't feel like paying for a decent defrag that knows how to actually run and not stop/restart every 30 seconds because of some other windows activity that "needs" to be done.
 
Just switched out my ASUS P2B mobo with a SOYO SY-7VMA-B...

IronWoode described it perfectly. Put in the WinXP CD and at the right prompt pressed repair and an hour later I've got WinXP up and running...

Waiting on SP1 to install right now...
 
Originally posted by: Fallen Kell
Chalk this whole mess up to MS and their decision to use the hardware as a copy protection measure. Go write them a letter and let them know that since you are not an idiot when it comes to computers, you like to change/upgrade your hardware every few months. And that now as a result you also need to reinstall their OS each time you do it.
Click to expand...

This has absolutely nothing to do with product activation. Any OS will have problems if you just swap boards without installing a fresh copy.

 
Originally posted by: jaeger66:
This has absolutely nothing to do with product activation. Any OS will have problems if you just swap boards without installing a fresh copy.
Click to expand...
yep

thats one of the reason why im still on win98/win2k ~ easy swap outs w/o OS reinstalls 😀
 
Originally posted by: THUGSROOK

thats one of the reason why im still on win98/win2k ~ easy swap outs w/o OS reinstalls 😀
Click to expand...

Well, you lost me on this one. If anything, it would seem that XP would make swaps easier, but still not good idea, because of it's larger complement of native drivers.
 
no no no, dont get me wrong ~ im just saying for me (mr. swap out every other week) Win98/Win2k makes my life easier.

for XP youve gotta reinstall or youll get problems.

thats all 🙂
 
Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
no no no, dont get me wrong ~ im just saying for me (mr. swap out every other week) Win98/Win2k makes my life easier.

for XP youve gotta reinstall or youll get problems.

thats all 🙂
Click to expand...

Check. But I must say Win2k wasn't very friendly to me on the reinstall either. One time I just replaced a mobo with an identical one and I could never get the video card to work. I spent 3 days trying everything, but it just wouldn't be detected as anything other than a 16 color VGA adapter.

Personally I would never trust a new mobo with an old OS install regardless of what OS it is, there are simply too many changes for it to be stable or reliable. But I guess if your OS doesn't last a week it doesn't matter so much. 🙂
 
Will it (XP mobo swap) require re-activation, or a restore of a copy of the wpa.wbl will do? I'm planning to buy the BH7.
 
Originally posted by: Jonsio
Will it (XP mobo swap) require re-activation, or a restore of a copy of the wpa.wbl will do? I'm planning to buy the BH7.
Click to expand...

I've wiped the OS and changed mobos without having to reactivate.
 
I swapped out my Abit IT7 Max2 V2 for the Abit BH7 and everything went smoothly without reinstalling windows.Soon as it booted to windows it started loading a few drivers automatically and that was it.I run XP Pro.
 
Originally posted by: jaeger66
Personally I would never trust a new mobo with an old OS install regardless of what OS it is, there are simply too many changes for it to be stable or reliable. But I guess if your OS doesn't last a week it doesn't matter so much. 🙂
Click to expand...
my OSes last me 6 months to a year.
i swap out numerous motherboards without so much as a hicup.
its just a matter of knowing how 🙂
 
I recently switched from a SIS745 to a SIS746FX and didn't have to reinstall WINXP, if you go from a different chipset maker (like SIS to VIA) you usually need to reinstall.
 
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