System Swap

[DroppedAtBirth.com]

I am currently running a PII 450 w/ 256mb ram, 20gb hd, windows 2000, voodoo 3, sblive, scsi, etc. It is running great and everything works but its time for a upgrade. I bought a motherboard and a PIII 600 and a new case. Now here is the question. What problem will I have if I swap all the components - hd, pci cards, agp cards, ram - yes is compatible, etc. Will windows 2000 have a mental break down because of the new board, new irq addys, or will it just update and everything will be alright? Any comments, experiences, or ideas are more than welcome.

Thanks

[Barney]

Just try how/if it works.If it works you are very lucky,if it doesn't you just have to install your OS again.You probably have to install it again,but you never know http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif .

Ronald

[JimG]

The only thing I can think of that would be important is to remove certain devices drivers from Device Manager in Win2k. (Gotta do this in Safe Mode, then transfer your components to the new board). You should take out everything under "System Devices", "Floppy Drive Controllers", and "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". If possible, put your sound, video, etc. cards in the exact same slot on the new mobo. With luck, win2k will figure all this stuff out when you boot it up for the first time on the new mobo. I tried this with Windows 95. Worked well, Windows 95 works great . .no reinstall necessary.

[scotter]

be for you remove all the devices from device mangler, COPY all the cab files from your install disk and every driver for every thing in your system to your hard drive
couse when you reboot your not going to have CD-ROM SUPPORT till it reloads and finds every thing and it's going to want all them drivers from the cab files and driver disk's http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[cyclone2]

Tried swapping my HD with 2000 on it into my other comp hoping it would redetect the new stuff etc- nada, total crapout
You would be best to make sure you back up what you need to CD or another partition and wipe out Windows and install fresh.
Mind you I didn't remove anything either, just be prepared to start fresh http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif

[DroppedAtBirth.com]

Ok I am definitely going to try this but still have a few questions. My computer is backup up right now so I have a few hours before I will start this experiment. But i have a few quesitons. What cab files should I look for? And what devices do I need to delete. Just the controllers and other motherboard devices or do I need to delete pci devices also? Thanks for the help.

[scotter]

I have never done this with windows 2000 so I'm not sure as to what to delete on my win98 computers I delete every thing
as for the cabs ? just copy the whole CD to a folder on the hard drive if you have enough room ? but you can probably get away with every thing but the win9xmig files if you need to save space ?

[DroppedAtBirth.com]

WOW!!!! I decided to do this tonight so I booted up in safe mode and started to remove hardware, etc. I found out there are a few things you can't remove otherwise the computer resets automatically. After two resets - each time is reinstalls all the hardware. I decide what the hel1 just put the old stuff - hd, dvd drive, cd-rw, tape backup, pci cards in the new pc and just find out what happens. This was the most impresive thing I have ever seen. My pc booted up with no errors. I logged and - the screen was reset back to 640 x 480 w/ 16 colors instead of the 1280 x xxxx w/ 32 bit. But that was the only difference. Windows went through a ton of hardware installs by it self. About 32 - lost count. Asked nothing until is was done. Ask to be restarted. I restarted it and when it came back up I reset the screen to 1280 and checked out the hardware listed. Nothing from the only pc was there. Only the controllers and stuff I installed. WOW. Windows did that, no errors??? I am a computer technician that work with pcs all day - mainly NT 4.0 and server. But this impressed me. It even change my home network setting to use the new network card that was new to both systems. Windows 2000 didn't miss a beat. Total time to go from 450 PII to 600 PIII with lots of pci cards, 2 hds, 1 dvd rom, 1 cdrw, 1 tape backup drive and a sound card. 1 1/4 hours. That is kewl.

Later All

[BFlurie]

Well, despite all the bad-mouthing, that's one thing Windows is designed for & does well -- soft & hardware compatibility and a large driver database.