Will installing a new mb require re-installing OS?

[dderolph]

If I install a new motherboard, will installing the drivers for the new board make it necessary to format drive C and reinstall my OS and other apps, or can I just install the new board, bootup, and install the drivers for the new board?

 

[Fern]

I just reformat when changing mobo's. Most will probrably recommend that also. However, some peeps will argue it can be fine w/o a reformat etc.

Here's a link to an Anandtech article with instructions on how to do it w/o reformat if you wanna try link

Good Luck

 

[egale]

I think officially, Microsoft will tell you that you can do that. In reality, maybe maybe not. Depending how different your new mobo is and what drivers are already installed on your drive will affect how the system will accept the new mobo.

What should happen is that upon first boot, Windows will realize it has new hardware and install what it needs. What may happen though is that there is some incompatibility that will prevent Windows from booting.

My suggestion is to try without reinstalling the os first and if that doesn't work, do the reformat.

Just be sure to back up anything important first.

 

[dderolph]

Fern, thanks for that link.

Can of worms ... er... eagle, your comments about the difference between the old and new board is something I was wondering about. I may be getting another ECS board to replace an ECS board. Guess the only thing I can do is try it, see what happens, and then make the final decision about whether to wipe the slate clean or not.

 

[boomerang]

I've followed the directions in that link numerous times with a 100% success rate. Do the procedure listed at the bottom of the article under Misc Notes:.

 

[Delorian]

I had the old ECS K7AMA and I recently upgraded to an MSI K7N2 Delta board not thinking about the old drivers I had installed. I received a STOP error every time I tried to load up Win2000 (even in safe mode, last known good etc.). This may not have happened had I uninstalled all of the old Mobo drivers and then switched out the boards, so it's probably worth a shot before you go and reformat the drive, but reformatting is I think the only surefire way. I always partition my drive separately (30 gig for primary and 70 for extended) for dual booting or single booting situations. Therefore I have 70 gig storage to work with, just in case I do have to reinstall my OS or format the Primary partition. Good Luck either way.

 

[LouPoir]

Yes

 

[MichaelZ]

great answer by loupair.

as for your question, the manufacturer doesn't matter. it depends on which chipset and onboard features. i changed from a gigabyte sis 645 board with realtek sound to a epox intel 875 board with CMI sound and loads of extras. blue screen came up and XP refused to boot (no supprises there).

was dissapointing losing a few game files which means i gotta reply those levels again to get my game status back.... backup your data and expect the worst. format would be the best thing to do.

 

[dderolph]

Since my drive is partitioned, I'm thinking I would not need to format all partitions, just drive/partition C. I do have some programs installed on D, and would have to reinstall them to get Windows Registry properly updated after installing the mb and installing the OS on drive C. But, at least, I would be able to leave all data files on partitions other than C. Make sense?

 

[CraigRT]

my rule of thumb is simply try installing new hardware without format... if it ends up working fine... why reformat? if it doesn't... reformat.

i've actually had pretty good luck switching hardware without a format.

results may vary

 

[Almighty1]

First clone your HD with Ghost and remove the backup drive that is now a image of the original. then boot with the old motherboard and goto device manager and change the HDD controller back to Standard IDE. Then boot with the new mobo and it should work. This way, if anything goes wrong. You can just use the backup HDD with the old mobo again regardless of what you do with the old one.

 

[dderolph]

Well, I have installed the new board and I did it without formatting my HDD. But, it has been messy. I had 3 major problems that could be resolved by repeated attempts to load drivers from the CD that came with the new mb. The problems were: 1) no sound, 2) can connect to the Internet, and 3) USB ports not recognized.

Only after running Windows 98SE Setup from the Windows 98SE CD did two of the problems (Internet connectivity and USB ports) get resolved. Still no sound; no speaker icon in System Tray.

Edit: I finally just got sound. Still have one minor problem with USB ports, as reflected in Device Manager. I have 8 items shown under Universal Serial Bus Controllers:
1. Sis 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
2. Sis 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
3. USB Root Hub
4. USB Root Hub
5. USB Root Hub
6. USB Root Hub
7. VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
8. VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Open Host Controller

I believe I should only see 4 items, not 8. This MB (ECS K7S5A PRO) has 4 USB ports on back. I only have one device connected there right now. The MB will support up to 6 USB connectors on the front panel, as far as I know. My case only has two connectors there, and I have not yet connected them to the pins on the mb. So, there should be nothing for those in Device Manager yet. Also, the two different drivers reflected in the above (Sis 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller and VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Open Host Controller) must be incorrect. In other words, I should only see one of those, not both, right? That occurrence of two probably arose because of repeated attempts to get USB drivers installed so that the system would recognize USB ports, and because I manually selected drivers and I was not sure which was the right one. If Device Manager is supposed to show 8 items for USB controllers, I believe it should 4 X "USB Root Hub" and 4 of one of whatever the (one) correct driver is for this mb.