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Question when changing motherboards...

S

slickg

Senior member
When you change a motherboard/cpu and transfer hard drives, do you have to format your hard drive or can you just keep the data that's on your hd? I am going to change motherboards and want to know whether I need to backup everything thanks.
 
Doing a clean format and install when moving a HD to a new mobo is recommended. You will have a fresher and stable system without the old drivers and registry entries. However, there is a little trick that you can do to just move the HD to the new mobo by changing the registry. Here is a article that explains it more, or you can sue the search function on the 'clean install' or similar terms here at this forum. This topic comes up ever few days it seems.



article
 
I swapped three motherboards and made the transition from Intel to AMD using Abit and MSI boards with different chipsets without a clean install. Went for about two years without a clean install of Win98, upgrading to 98sE along the way. I finally was forced to do a clean install recently.

You can use the registry ENUM method or you can just use the system Device Manager. I've never done this with any OS except Win98 or 98SE. Basically:

Boot to Safe Mode.
Open control Panel/System/Device Manager.
Remove EVERY DEVICE except PlugNPlay BIOS and Dial UP Adaptors.
Shut down normally.
Install the new motherboard, ram, cpu/heatsink, floppy, HD, CDROM and video card - thoroughly read mobo manual.
Have all device drivers ready for device detection and driver install.

On startup, immediately enter BIOS and set defaults per your manual. Restart any let the OS detect all devices. Install chipset drivers and video card device driver.

Once that's done, install other devices one at a time, rebooting after each device installation.

Usually, a conflict-free installation is the result. If there are conflicts, they can usually be resolved by an overlay install of the OS (just install the OS on top of itself - same directory).

Clean install + download of all updates is really the best way. But reinstalling all apps and tweaks and tweaking is really a week-long project. My way takes about 30 minutes, and the registry maintains all installation/configuration data - even if you're forced to do an overlay install of the OS.

Hope this helps!
 
There are really 2 issues hidden in there Slick. Yes you can most likely go ahead and use the drive with no problems, but you should definitely back up your data anyway.
 
I recently just switched out my MSI K7T Turbo (SDR board) with a Soltek SL75DRV4 (DDR board) without re-installing Win2K and it worked fine as I thought it would, being as both mainboards are VIA based, its a little easier to swap mobos keeping some things similar. all is working fast and stable under Win2000.
 
Thanks for your help guys I really appreciate it! I am actually converting from an old socket 7 Gigabyte motherboard to a new IWill KK266
 
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