Replacing the motherboard.

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BP

Is it always necessary to re-install WXP if you replace the MB, or can you
just change the drivers for MB, onboard LAN, and sound? My box just died.
Think it is the board. Will know more after some tests.
WXP is on the primary partition along with all my software. All the user
files are in the extended partitions. I'm assuming that in the worst case,
if I have to replace the OS, that I can format only the primary partition
and leave the others alone? I backed up my files a week ago, but I have a
couple of new contracts saved that were not backed up.
 
Whether or not you have to a *repair* reinstall is dependant on how
different the chipsets are. I'm currently running XP SP2 on top of SP1 on
top of XP on top of Me on top of SE and have gone through an MVP3, KT400,
NForce 2 and now running on a KT800 chipset. Last clean install was SE.
 
You'll have to reinstall xp with a new board,try the repair,reinstall drivers,
etc,it wont work,you'll end up reinstalling.In youre case,xp sometimes
installs
itself on other partitions if multiple exist on same drive.To make sure it
goes
back to primary C:,boot to xp cd,recovery,press enter for password,then type:
DiskPart,in DiskPart,delete the partition,create one,then press Esc
key,then type:
EXIT Let xp restart,reboot to xp cd,select,install xp.
 
You don't need to reinstall.

XP won't boot because it can't find the boot controller or the HAL is
different. If the HAL is different, you'll be best off with a repair
install. If the boot controller is different (and usually it is,
unless you're moving from Intel chipset to Intel chipset or Via chipset
to Via chipset - and they're in essentially similar families) then
there's a simple way to get around the problem:

Just before you shut down your old motherboard for the last time, go to
Device Manager and change your PCI IDE controllers' driver from
whatever it is now to "Standard PCI IDE Controller" and shut down. Do
not reboot or boot again with that motherboard. Now move the hard
drive to your new computer, put it in, and it's typically fully
bootable. Graphics will look odd and so forth, but that's easily
addressed by installing the drivers.
 
BP said:
Is it always necessary to re-install WXP if you replace the MB, or
can you just change the drivers for MB, onboard LAN, and sound? My
box just died. Think it is the board. Will know more after some tests.
WXP is on the primary partition along with all my software. All the
user files are in the extended partitions. I'm assuming that in the
worst case, if I have to replace the OS, that I can format only the
primary partition and leave the others alone? I backed up my files a
week ago, but I have a couple of new contracts saved that were not
backed up.
Click to expand...

Read this excellent article:
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
Author: Michael Stevens MS-MVP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
 
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