Switching mother boards, do i need to reformat harddrive?

[BoleCailey]

My MSI K8N neo 2 platinum fried two of its ram slots so instead of waiting on an RMA on a mother board I was not to happy with i went with an Epox 9nda3+. The only drivers i have installed are the invidia drivers and since the chipsets are both nforce three do i need to reformat the harddrive? I did not install any msi software. I believe they use the same drivers but correct if i am mistaken.

 

[MTSteel]

If you have XP you can use Sysprep and reseal it. Pull old motherboard out, install new one and power it up.


Here is some instructions from another site....

You will need to extract files from the Windows XP CD, files are located at CD:SUPPORTTOOLS in a cab file called DEPLOY.CAB. The files are Sysprep.exe and Setupcl.exe. Extract these files to the same folder.

With the old motherboard still in the system:

You run sysprep.exe and tell it to "RESEAL" Windows XP. Note that it will shutdown the PC when it completes the reseal process.

Now pull out the old MB, install the new one and fire up the machine. It re-activates Windows XP and populates the device manager list.

You do need to re-activate with the same key-code.

Since this technique has been so successful; I now keep a spare HD with all my major software preinstalled as a backup. I clone this drive and use it when I setup a new PC, or change out the MB in an existing PC.

Unlike some MB changing techniques, this doesn't result in dual entries in the registery, and it works when there are drastically different chipsets on the motherboards.

 

[BoleCailey]

Thanks i will have to try that.

 

[jmarkos]

What if the motherboard is already removed and replaced?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: jmarkos
What if the motherboard is already removed and replaced?

See this Anandtech Article, specifically at the bottom under "Misc".

Fern