Q: new mobo-reformat of hard drive required ?

[Deskstar]

I have a theoretical problem this time. When moving hard drives from one mobo to another, different brands, models, and manufacturers, ordinarily reformating is required for the new mobo to "recognize" the hard drive, I think.

But, what if, on the old motherboard, the hard drive is running off of an SCSI PCI controller card (or an EIDE PCI controller card for that matter) with its own card BIOS. Could I not just keep the hard drive attached to its controller card and move both from old motherboard to the new motherboard without having to reforrmat the drive? Anyone done this and had it work?

Thank you in advance.

 

[pspada]

Depends on the OS. Linux seems to handle hardware changes gracefully. Whereas Winblows NT/2000/ME/XP don't. But just do a repair install, and you should be up and running without reformatting.

 

[egale]

I would guess it probably won't work. Your os contains all sorts of information about your entire system's hardware not just the hard drive and it's controller. Maybe in theory Windows should be smart enough to take care of everything but in real life, I think you will need to reformat and reinstall.

 

[nightowl]

A hard drive does not need to be reformatted for the motherboard to recognize it. The communication of the drive and the motherboard is on the hardware level and will not need software for communication between the 2. It is a good practice to reformat after major hardware changes, like a motherboard install, when working with Windows to make sure that the new hardware is recognized properly and the old drivers are not interfering with anything.

 

[Deskstar]

So, it might work and it might not; and, if it does work, you all still recommend a reformat, reinstall anyway. Plain enought, depressing, buy plain enough.
Deskstar