New computer parts are here, will I have to reinstall XP?

[fustercluck]

Got a new CPU, Motherboard, and RAM:

E7200 Wolfdale
Gigabyte EP35-DSL
4 GB of Corsair DOMINATOR

Will I have to reinstall XP? I forget. My bro says I do. I haven't done this big of an upgrade on my computer for a long time so I forgot. If I do have to reinstall XP, should I probably just install Vista instead? Though I've heard even Vista doesn't really use all 4gb of the memory...confusing stuff. Thanks in advance.

 

[theAnimal]

A repair install worked for me.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

It is possible but often problematic to do the swap without a fresh install. It's easier/safer and usually less problems in the long run to just reformat and do a clean install.

Vista x32 has the same ram limitation as XP, Vista x64 doesn't and will see and use as much ram as your mobo will hold

 

[theAnimal]

You can also try this. http://episteme.arstechnica.co.../77909774/m/1400925745

 

[fustercluck]

Thanks for the info.

Wanted to do a repair install but I can't boot up my old computer since it died, so I can't prepare for a repair install.

Basically I just want to avoid having to reinstall all my applications, that's always a long pain in the ass.

 

[postmortemIA]

Vista x64 uses all memory, XP will see up to 3.25GB

also if you enable AHCI or RAID on new mobo you won't be able to even boot to Windows

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: ropeadope
Thanks for the info.

Wanted to do a repair install but I can't boot up my old computer since it died, so I can't prepare for a repair install.

Basically I just want to avoid having to reinstall all my applications, that's always a long pain in the ass.

Yep, I had the same schenario a couple of months ago when my sons s939 x2 rigs mobo died, and I upgraded his rig to a C2D with the exact board your using and I tried a repair install and a couple of other tricks even though I wasn't able to prepare and strip drivers and it was a no go. Ending up having to reformat, reinstall OS and validate, and reload all apps

 

[fustercluck]

bummer, ah well, thanks for the info. Might try out Vista... I did pay for 4GB of memory after all. Can see a lot of problems happening with vista though.

 

[fustercluck]

bump

I'm having some trouble getting everything setup, hope someone can help. Like I said before, my last computer died and I just put in a new CPU/Mobo/RAM. It wouldn't boot into XP (no surprise there) so I put the XP CD in and went to install. It says my C drive (which was the drive windows was on is totally empty (194 GB free) and says "Unknown" by it. It detects my D drive just fine, with only 53GB free (which is correct) and says "NTFS" next to it. It's a 400 GB hard drive. Not sure why it's not detecting anything on C but is detecting the D drive correctly. Should only be 30GB or so free on the C drive. Hope it didn't get deleted somehow...didn't have any trouble with my HD even with my broken computer. Everything was A-ok with my HD when my computer died.

Anyhow, hope someone can help, I don't really know what to do.

 

[fustercluck]

bump again (sorry )

New computer still isn't detecting anything on the C drive on my hard drive. The D drive it detects just fine. Tried to run a repair, did a DIR on C and it gave me an error. I just did a test on my HDD and it came out error free. So, I don't know what the problem is.

 

[MrColin]

You might be able to recover some data with a bootable liveCD, I've heard BartPE is good, and Ive personally used Ubuntu liveCDs and was pretty happy with the result. With Ubuntu its a free download the .iso and burn. I think with BartPE you have to build it yourself due to licensing issues (requiring a working windows pc).

 

[fustercluck]

I'm thinking this is more of a case of my new computer parts just not getting along with my hard drive though. I bet I could hook up my HD to another computer and everything would show up, but dunno. I can't remember anything super important I had on my C drive, but I'm sure I'll find out soon

 

[fustercluck]

Hey guys, need some quick help here...

Trying to install Vista ultimate and would like to do the "Upgrade" option which keeps all program files and settings intact. However, it says "The Upgrade option has been disabled" when I get to the screen where I get to choose which kind of install I want to do. It doesn't give me any reason why "Upgrade has been disabled" so I'm kinda confused.

Another odd thing is the Vista CD detects my hard drive perfectly fine, detects my C drive has 23 GB free (where as my XP install CD said the drive was empty for some reason...). So, I'm glad to see that windows vista detects it with no problem, but it won't let me upgrade from my previous installation of Windows XP SP2.

Why won't it let me to an upgrade? I'll probably have to do a fresh install, but would like to do the upgrade if I could, it'd be a lot less hassle.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

You can only upgrade a bootable working OS, if you can't boot to windows in the OS you can't upgrade it.

As I've stated a couple of times already you will have to REFORMAT the hard drive. I know it's a pain and that you will have to reload all your apps and will lose any data that you haven't saved but thats what your going to have to do.

If you've got data on that drive that you just can't lose you have a couple of options.
1. pull the drive and take it to a data recovery place (expensive)
2. pull the drive and stick it in a working system as a secondary drive long enough to get the data you need

 

[Dravic]

You best bet is going to be boot up using a liveCD(ubuntu is good), copy all important data(game savs, app data, picts, documents, etc..) you want to keep over to the drive with 53GB free.

They are just fundamentally different arch's.

Your going to spend more time fixing and chasing down bugs over then next few months that it will actually be quicker to to the format reinstall, and app reloads.