Motherboard upgrade without Windows re-install?

R

Reus

Limp Gawd
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Jan 1, 2009
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Hello! I am planning to upgrade my wife's ASUS P5B-E (Intel P965 chipset) with a P5Q-Pro (Intel P45 chipset). Will it be possible to switch out the board without re-installing Windows and everything else? There is no RAID array, and all existing components will be migrated to the new MB. The OS being used is XP Pro 32-bit, Vista is just a wee bit out of the budget at the moment. Any help you can provide is much appreciated, thank you!
 
Nope, there's no other surefire way. You can try a Windows repair, but I doubt it'd work out well.
 
i have done this sucessfully one time(only try lol) a freinds mobo went out in an old dell computer. i ordered a cheap one from Newegg, re-installed everything and windows booted right up without re-formating.


but most people usually suggest you just get a fresh copie of windows installed to make sure there isnt any problems

i guess all you can do is try it out. lol
 
Check my thread in the storage forum. I went from a DFI LP JR T2RS to an ASUS P5E-VM HDMI, with RAID-0, and had no problems. Different (older) chipset, even a different RAID controller. I did not expect it to work, in fact I plugged in the drives with no concern for order as to which ports I used or anything, it didn't matter in this case, after a couple of deletions in device manager and then installing the proper drivers off the ASUS CD everything worked perfectly.

Like I said, I didn't expect this, I had a backup of course and ended up reinstalling just out of concern as I'd rather not have any surprises later on down the road. But everything was A-OK with a full scan in the RAID manager and I didn't see any extra weird Event Log msgs or anything, it probably would have been fine.

But I wouldn't count on it. Vista-32, BTW.
 
Its easy to do, my current C2D X38 setup is running the same Windows I used for my old Athlon64 system over a year ago.

Be sure to uninstall the motherboard and video drivers before you plug in your new kit.
DO NOT boot again with the old kit in place after uninstalling the old drivers.

Plug in your new kit and it will prompt you for drivers.
Job Done.

ps I'm on XP, so best get confirmation for Vista.
 
Reus said:
Hello! I am planning to upgrade my wife's ASUS P5B-E (Intel P965 chipset) with a P5Q-Pro (Intel P45 chipset). Will it be possible to switch out the board without re-installing Windows and everything else? There is no RAID array, and all existing components will be migrated to the new MB. The OS being used is XP Pro 32-bit, Vista is just a wee bit out of the budget at the moment. Any help you can provide is much appreciated, thank you!
Click to expand...
Certainly it's possible. In fact it's quite easy. See How to: Upgrade your motherboard without reinstalling Windows. Sysprep is much easier and faster.
 
I have done it many times with no problems.... slapped in the new motherboard and booted it up and Windows found all the new hardware just fine and I installed all the latest drivers and away I went. Worked everytime.

It took...all of 5 minutes once the hardware was swapped out.
 
I used to do this all the time by uninstalling all the chipset drivers first, then shutting the machine down, putting the new board in and then starting windows again. I never had any issues doing this. Just make sure you uninstall every peice of onboard hardware you can.
 
Done it as well, agreed uninstall as many drivers etc as you can before the switch. If you can get into windows on the new hardware you should be fine to load appropriate drivers, if not try repair install as already mentioned.

As you are going to/from a windows chipset you likely will have very little issue. I had no trouble going from P965 to G33.

It is particularly pleasing that RAID defined on ICH8R will move to ICH9R too.
 
call me old fashioned
but I still recommend you to do a fresh install
 
one vista install for me =

m2a-vm (am2) with a fx-62

to

M3a-h/hdmi with a 9600

back to my

Commando rockin a p4

Just uninstall all old drivers and you will be fine
(im not using raid)
 
Go into device manager, go to System Devices, Uninstall Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System.

If it asks you to restart choose no, it may ask you a few times. Then when it's done uninstalling system drivers shut the computer down. Switch out your hardware and then boot up.

It has worked many times for me. If all else fails then do a System Repair.
 
I have a test box that I swap boards in all the time......probably been thru 25 hardware changes on the same install of XP...just follow the advice above and remove the motherboard drivers and swap in your new board....let it detect the new hardware, then install the latest chipset drivers..should be all good after that
 
MaxBurn said:
As you are going to/from a windows chipset you likely will have very little issue. I had no trouble going from P965 to G33.
.
Click to expand...

What's a windows chipset?

The sysprep method mentioned above works sometimes, but I've seen it give real erratic results. FWIW, I've used several methods of "transplanting" windows to a new mobo, and I've seen each of them work ok one time, but refuse to boot without bsod the next.

The biggest obstacle is the "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" BSOD. You will get this if the hard drive controller driver needed has not been installed. I actually moved one system, back in the day, by installing a PCI hard drive controller card. Windows installed drivers for that card, I then hooked the windows disk to that card. I let it boot once, to test it, and then moved the hard disk and pci card to the new machine. I let it go through one boot process on the new mobo, to install the new hdd controller drivers, and then put the disk on that controller. This was actually back with win2k, I believe. XP or later may be better about autodetecting the necessary hdd controller driver.
 
Thanks for all the great info everyone! This will save me a heck of a lot of hassle. I don't mind swapping hardware around, but re-installing Windows = bleh! :)
 
I remember getting BSOD for APIC feature on my new board that was not available on the old board,
best make sure whether the old board BIOS support APIC and it's state (on or off), and match the setting with the new board.
 
Good luck and let us know the results. I recently had success as well, just had to reinstall the chipset drivers.
 
Same chipset brands should work just fine. I've done it a few times including once or twice with different brands. Just let it detect everything and once its done run the new chipset drivers, etc. etc. Then things should work out! ;)
 
:rolleyes: Pure laziness not to reinstall a fresh OS with a new motherboard.
Yes you can do it, yes it may even seem to work well. But I don't take chances like that. I want the best performance I can get from my PC. That means new motherboard, new hard drive = reformat and reload.
 
I have installed my hd with os from old mobo to new mobo quite a few times without a new install or repair. Just install the new drivers from the mobo cd. This has only worked going from intel chipset to intel. (like you are doing) Wont do it between intel and nvidia chipsets for me. I just did this last week, scored over 19500 on 3dmark06, performance seems fine to me, no bsod or problems experienced. I dont have a few extra hours to reinstall all my games, programs, pics, music etc. And yes, it is pure laziness on my part.
 
If you have the current Intel drivers, it will just detect the new hardware and go from there. The chipsets aren't all the much different. The only thing is maybe different audio codecs.
 
Xiphos said:
call me old fashioned
but I still recommend you to do a fresh install
Click to expand...


QFT. Always always fresh install. Might as well. Only takes a short amount of time with todays hardware, and you should be backing up your important files anyway.
 
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