• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Upgrade system without re-installing?

R

rwhapham

Junior Member
I figured this forum might be the best place to get a thumbs up or thumbs down to what I'd like to do. Right now I have an aging 1GHz AMD Athlon system that is being pushed to the limits by the apps that I use. I built this system by hand, and so have no fear diving in and replacing components. What I would like to do is drop in a new AMD-64/motherboard/RAM, and probably a better video card, but avoid having to reinstall everything by keeping the drives that I have (40GB boot/application drive and 2-250GB SATA drives configured RAID-2 for data). I'm running WinXP Pro SP2. Does anyone have any insight or input into whether Windows will be able to reconfigure itself after swapping out the guts of my system? Thanks in advance.

Rob
 
Yes, you can do it (although opinions always seem to run high on this; some people are VERY DETERMINED to reformat their systems WHENEVER POSSIBLE). If you search, you should numerous threads in GH about doing this.
 
Originally posted by: rwhapham
I figured this forum might be the best place to get a thumbs up or thumbs down to what I'd like to do. Right now I have an aging 1GHz AMD Athlon system that is being pushed to the limits by the apps that I use. I built this system by hand, and so have no fear diving in and replacing components. What I would like to do is drop in a new AMD-64/motherboard/RAM, and probably a better video card, but avoid having to reinstall everything by keeping the drives that I have (40GB boot/application drive and 2-250GB SATA drives configured RAID-2 for data). I'm running WinXP Pro SP2. Does anyone have any insight or input into whether Windows will be able to reconfigure itself after swapping out the guts of my system? Thanks in advance.

Rob
Click to expand...

There's an article on how to do it w/o reformating here at Anandtech. I can't seem to find the link now, but go to the main site, shouldn't be too hard to find it.

EDIT: Found the link
HERE
 
It may work, but whatever you do, back up your sensitive data and have a copy of XP at hand before anything else.

I successfully did this when I went from a Via Kt400 to a A64 K8T800 motherboard. Both were based off Via's chipsets so I lucked out. You'll likely come across a problem if you go from lets say a Kt400 to a 250-Gb nforce3 nivida motherboard.

And like the Anandtech FAQ stated, the first time you boot up with a new mobo get ready for a flood of "Found New Hardware" dialogues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top