Need help with K8N Neo Plat Installation

[drengr]

I put in my new MSI k8N Neo Platinum and AMD Athlon 64 3200+, and when it came time for Windows XP to load a message came up that said C:\windows\inf\biosinfo.inf had been corrupted. How could this have happened? How can I repair this file?

 

[imported_mpelle4456]

You were using a hard drive with an existing WinXP installation?

You'll most likely have to reinstall Windows.

Only once have I been able to get away without doing a full re-install. It was when I was changing between an A7N8X Deluxe v1.04 and an A7N8X-E Deluxe.

You can either activate the new installation over the internet or by phone.

I've done the phone activation several times. Each time I had an elaborate story prepared on why I had to reinstall (the dog ate my old motherboard so I had to upgrade, etc...) but the Microsoft person never even asked... just gave me the activation codes...

The last couple times is was all automated - never talked to a live person.

It is a real pain in the ass having to re-install, though...

 

[drengr]

Ok, I'll do this. After I reinstall Windows what exactly will be lost? I know I'll have to update again, but will it affect any of my programs or saved files? Thanks for the help.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

It will depend on how you have everything intsalled.

Everytime I've re-installed windows I've formatted the hard drive, so if you have your data stored on that same drive then you will need to back it up.

Also, any programs that are intsalled into the windows registry will need to be re-installed. Maybe there are some tricks to backing up your registry and then copying it over to the new computer, but that seems pretty sketchy to me.

I'm not aware of a way to easily re-install only windows without affecting other programs, but I am by no means an expert.

Definitely back up any important data before you do anything drastic.

-D'oh!

 

[mozzer00]

Your XP install is not lost. I also recently moved to a MSI k8n motherboard with the same HD. You are able to make it work again by doing a XP repair as described on the following page: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/other/motherboard/winxp.htm Solution-2.

I also had a very weird keyboard problem with this mobo were a lot of people also are running into, but that's a different topic.

Cheers.

 

[drengr]

Well, I think I have a solution: I decided to just install windows to my 36gb Seagate Cheetah SCSI HD. That way nothing on the other hard drive will be lost and windows will hopefully run faster on the SCSI.