DO I HAVE TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE??

[absalom]

I am planning to change out my motherboard and cpu do i have to reformat my hardrive???

[rangeral]

Sometimes you can get away with it, go to safe mode and remove system devices in device manager before changing the board then shutdown and see what happens. Usually I'll wipe the drive if I change the board as you could have problems down the road but then XP is pretty intuitive and you might get away with it but then you might have to deal with wpa activation scheme.

You might want to save the WPA.DBL file which resides in the Windows\system32 directory before making any changes in case you have a problem with too many device changes and replace it with the saved copy.

[xxmindcrimexx]

I have to agree with rangeral. I've had too many problems just swapping out the mobo. For the best results, just reformat and start over again.

[BipolarBill]

It depends on the Windows version. Win9x has problems when you change chipsets. Win2K and WinXP can tolerate motherboard changes pretty nicely. Just have the chipset drivers handy.

[grimfandango]

YOU will to reinstall windows if you change your mombo.

[absalom]

Thanks guys for the info later :t

[Bullet-Man-2]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
It depends on the Windows version. Win9x has problems when you change chipsets. Win2K and WinXP can tolerate motherboard changes pretty nicely. Just have the chipset drivers handy.

When I changed mobo's and CPU win2k would not boot. It would give me a BSOD as soon as it would end that boot sequince. On the other hand my Windows ME system just took the new mobo and cpu with a few problems but no BSOD's. Oh well, I thought that was kinda strange.


Anyways, I would always format the hhd if you want to change mobo's. It's better in the long run :t

[BipolarBill]

Booting from the Win2K/XP CD after a motherboard change and running the repair process will fix even that. ;)

[DaveJH]

Bipolar Bill, I've just tried to put my old HDD in a new mobo and I am coming up with an option to boot from 2 Windows XP installations!? Whichever one I select it says there is something wrong with the installation and it may be invalid or corrupt.

Should I try running the MBR repair option when booting from the CD, or would I be better off just going for a reformat and full reinstall?

Any comments on this would be much appreciated as I have swopped HDD's before under Win98 with no real problems.

(PS I did clone the drive before putting it the new system - would this account for the apparent additional XP installation?)

[BipolarBill]

http://www.gateway.com/support/product/Software/WinXP/Installs/750959411.shtml

[DaveJH]

Thanx BipolarBill, saw that link on another of your posts. Clarifies what I was trying to do.

[DaveJH]

For anyone interested, I followed the procedure recommended by BipolarBill and can confirm that it does work. No reformatting necessary!:)