Changing motherboard without reinstalling Wndows 7 Pro

[Flogger23m]

I am going to be upgrading to a new motherboard eventually. I am wondering if I can swap out the motherboard/CPU/RAM, then boot back into Windows 7 64bit Pro and use it as it was without having to wipe my Windows install. From what I understand this can be done in Win 7, though it depends on what motherboard you are coming from and going to.

My current motherboard is a rather old ASUS M3N78 Pro:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M3N78_PRO/

I will be moving to something which can run the Intel i5/i7 4***. I am not sure which specific board I will use yet, though I will probably buy another ASUS board if that makes a difference.

I am wondering if anyone has done this before with success on Windows 7? If so, from which motherboard did you upgrade from and to? And what extra steps did you have to take if necessary?

 

[Kongar]

Windows 7 is pretty good about this. I just recently took an image onto a completely brand new rig. Core 2 duo build from 5+ years ago to a new Haswell chip with a MSI motherboard. The only issue I had was a blue screen upon bootup, and this was due to the motherboard switching from IDE mode on the hard drives to AHCI. Once I fixed that - win 7 booted right up, reinstalled a lot of drivers, and worked exactly like before. Needed to be reactivated - but all the programs worked just fine.

In my case - it was a build for a family member who loves to lose CD keys and not back stuff up etc. Reinstalling would have been a major pita. So this worked out real well for me. Now if it was my rig - I think I'd go to the trouble of a full reinstall. I just like starting fresh with windows every once and a while - but your miles may vary...

Go for it - you'll be fine

 

[timta2]

I've transfered a Windows 7 installation between motherboards with the same chipset successfully. If I remember correctly it's often said that it's a toss up with motherboards with different chipsets, but maybe that's changed.

 

[Skripka]

Uninstall ALL motherboard specific drivers/utilities including any overclocking utilities. And Win7 should tolerate a body transplant fine. First boot will take a while.

 

[bigdogchris]

Going from AMD to Intel without reinstalling sounds like you are a glutton for punishment.

 

[mavrocket]

Going from AMD to Intel without reinstalling sounds like you are a glutton for punishment.

I have to agree with this. Changing motherboards from the same manufacturer with a similar chipset is one thing, but completely changing the way the kernel interacts with the CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD, etc. should have you considering a reinstall of the OS.

If you are worried about losing anything, definitely create an image of the the OS drive, but be ready with your Windows 7 installation CD.

 

[ManofGod]

I know you did not ask this, but: Since you are switching to two entirely different chipsets and manufacturers, I would just go ahead and reinstall everything from scratch. It will avoid any unforeseen or nagging problems that you might have. Also, chances are, you might end up with a BSOD on startup anyways due to how the Sata controller is configured.

I did switch boards and did not even have to reactivate Windows 8. However, it was only going from an Asrock 990FX Extreme 4 to an Asrock 990FX Extreme 9 so nothing changed as far as Windows was concerned. (Better overclocking and cooler running is what I got though.)

 

[Dogs]

I have had luck doing this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249694#method2
See section "The preferred method to restore Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7", specifically.

So in other words, you want to do a bare metal restore with automated system recovery. I haven't found a straight-forward, concise and easy to understand guide to this, but it isn't that difficult. I don't have time to look for one at the moment, but you should be able to look around on the web and find something which makes sense to you.

Going from AMD to Intel without reinstalling sounds like you are a glutton for punishment.

It could be, if you just try to swap out the boards, plug the drive in and wing it. However, if proper preparation is done beforehand, and if you embrace the modern technologies behind Windows, it can actually be relatively painless. My colleagues and I have done bare metal restores of an image from a multiprocessor server to a dual core laptop before. Even the HALs are decoupled from the image and can be carefully swapped out, allowing such ridiculous hardware changes.

 

[Skripka]

Going from AMD to Intel without reinstalling sounds like you are a glutton for punishment.

Meh, my sig rig is running a Win7 x64 install from what used to be a x4 AMD system with Biostar motherboard...that became and x6 AMD system with a Gigabyte chipset...that went into my old i7-950 Asus P6x58D-E system....that is now as below.

W7 is pretty damn good at putting up with having a full body transplant IME, so long as no motherboard/chipset specific utilities remain.

 

[Kongar]

Ya I missed the AMD to Intel switch part... Not so sure how that would work. But you can create an image in case something gets messed up - then if you need to restore and back up you can...

As others said and I alluded to. If you've got a pressing reason to not install from scratch - then you can give it a try without fear of failure (as long as you do it right and take some backups first). It might be a hassle and fail - but hey you tried... But if you're asking just because you're being lazy and don't want to reinstall, well... I dunno - it's possible you're creating more work for yourself in the end.

NEED - give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen?
LAZY - suck it up and reinstall

 

[bigdogchris]

I wonder how many problems posted on this forum over the years were caused by someone swapping motherboards without reinstalling. This person "knows for a fact" that it's not the problem and does not volunteer that they swapped boards when asking for help, which in turn leaves us scratching our heads for weeks over why we can't find a solution.

... I wonder.

Your motherboard and it's relationship with the OS is one of the most important, if not the most important, relationship in a computer. I just don't think saving a few minutes is worth all of the trouble that could come from it.

 

[Dogs]

Your motherboard and it's relationship with the OS is one of the most important, if not the most important, relationship in a computer.

It is and it isn't. Windows has done a good job of separating itself from the hardware. You can very easily move a Windows install from one set of hardware to another if you do it properly.

That said, it seems most 'pc enthusiasts' don't actually understand how any of that work, and thus don't do it properly.

 

[Flogger23m]

Windows 7 is pretty good about this. I just recently took an image onto a completely brand new rig. Core 2 duo build from 5+ years ago to a new Haswell chip with a MSI motherboard. The only issue I had was a blue screen upon bootup, and this was due to the motherboard switching from IDE mode on the hard drives to AHCI. Once I fixed that - win 7 booted right up, reinstalled a lot of drivers, and worked exactly like before. Needed to be reactivated - but all the programs worked just fine.

So how did you fix that? Just by rebooting the PC? Though I assume that won't be an issue as my drives are all SATA (which I assume means they re currently in AHCI)?

So essentially, what I should do is:

1) Create image.
2) Uninstall all motherboard drivers and utilities. Download new motherboard drivers on USB drive.
3) Swap out hardware.
4) Start up PC, go into Windows. Let it download drivers/utilities.
5) When it boots into Windows, reactivate 7.

And then hope it works. Anything else?

I do have my data on a dedicated backup HDD and have my Win 7 Pro license. So if the install does go wrong I can copy the data onto a fresh install and spend hours upon hours getting all those mods and programs set up.

 

[Dangman]

So how did you fix that? Just by rebooting the PC? Though I assume that won't be an issue as my drives are all SATA (which I assume means they re currently in AHCI)?

Go into the UEFI/BIOS and make sure that the SATA setting is set to AHCI, RAID, or IDE, whichever setting was used by your current motherboard.

For the record, I've moved a Windows 7 install from Intel to AMD without issue besides me forgetting the SATA mode thing mentioned above.

 

[Stoly]

Before swapping the board uninstall any mobo specific drivers and software.

just to be safe I'd also change SATA from AHCI to IDE.

 

[Flogger23m]

Before swapping the board uninstall any mobo specific drivers and software.

just to be safe I'd also change SATA from AHCI to IDE.

And then would I change it back to AHCI after in boots into Windows (assuming it works)?

 

[stiltner]

I did it, worked fine.

Swapped chipsets even.

1st boot I had went to safe mode and made sure
I took out unit specific drivers, then rebooted and
let Windows do its thing for updating.

Checked, all hardware was installed and was up and
working after about 10-15 minutes

 

[cyclone3d]

If yiu don't want to have to worry about changing hardware, run sysprep and select "generalize" and then shutdown when it finishes.

It will then re-detect all hardware from scratch once you boot up with the new hardware.

 

[B00nie]

If yiu don't want to have to worry about changing hardware, run sysprep and select "generalize" and then shutdown when it finishes.

It will then re-detect all hardware from scratch once you boot up with the new hardware.

The only problem with this approach is that often the need to install on new hardware comes with the failure of the old one

 

[B00nie]

It is and it isn't. Windows has done a good job of separating itself from the hardware. You can very easily move a Windows install from one set of hardware to another if you do it properly.

That said, it seems most 'pc enthusiasts' don't actually understand how any of that work, and thus don't do it properly.

Instead of making statements like that, take advice from Floggers and cyclone3d:s answer. THIS is how you should reply.

 

[ManofGod]

I did it, worked fine.

Swapped chipsets even.

1st boot I had went to safe mode and made sure
I took out unit specific drivers, then rebooted and
let Windows do its thing for updating.

Checked, all hardware was installed and was up and
working after about 10-15 minutes

Did it need to be activated? Does it say needs to be activated in 3 days in the system properties or is it activated already? Excellent on the results by the way.

 

[idividebyzero]

I had no problems at all when I switched from Intel to AMD, booted up like normal and installed the new device drivers like normal

 

[stiltner]

Did it need to be activated? Does it say needs to be activated in 3 days in the system properties or is it activated already? Excellent on the results by the way.

I don't recall. If it did, I just hit activate and it was done.

Nothing monumental that I can recall from the entire process. It went
rather smooth, so much so I didn't take mental stock of much of the
process.