A new motherboard, without reinstalling windows??

Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
5,780
Can it be done? I am thinking go delete all the hardware in system, but leave the MS HDD control drivers. What are the MS HDD drivers called in the list though?

Ok, I think I got it, I found http://arstechnica.com/hardware/new...-motherboard-without-reinstalling-windows.ars it says what I was thinking accept why do I need to do more then switch it to the MS controller? After I do that switch, I just boot up & install the MB drivers right?
 
Last edited:
New motherboard of the same make/model? Yup. You can.

If not, rebuild. Do not bother otherwise.

as long as its intel to intel or amd to amd then no problem, just remember to use ide mode for your hard drives as AHCI will cause problems on reboot, then just do the reg tweak to enable AHCI and your done :)
 
Can it be done? I am thinking go delete all the hardware in system, but leave the MS HDD control drivers. What are the MS HDD drivers called in the list though?

Ok, I think I got it, I found http://arstechnica.com/hardware/new...-motherboard-without-reinstalling-windows.ars it says what I was thinking accept why do I need to do more then switch it to the MS controller? After I do that switch, I just boot up & install the MB drivers right?
Went from Q9650 to SB i5-2500K, different chipset, no probs.
Been running for a few months now without problems! :)

Backup your data; what have you got to lose?
 
Windows 7/Vista are less sensitive to motherboard changes even with different chipsets in my experience but if you still knocking around with old XP then more than likely it will throw a BSOD at you. As mentioned always best to do fresh install to stop any problems later on down the line.
 
Went from Q9650 to SB i5-2500K, different chipset, no probs.
Been running for a few months now without problems! :)

Backup your data; what have you got to lose?

Cool, what exactly did you do? I am on XP.

Windows 7/Vista are less sensitive to motherboard changes even with different chipsets in my experience but if you still knocking around with old XP then more than likely it will throw a BSOD at you. As mentioned always best to do fresh install to stop any problems later on down the line.

:( Installing Windows is such a pain. Is there a way to keep all the data & none hardware settings so I don't have to redo everything?
 
Cool, what exactly did you do? I am on XP.



:( Installing Windows is such a pain. Is there a way to keep all the data & none hardware settings so I don't have to redo everything?

If you can Acronis True Image it has an option to backup a HDD and restore it to another no matter what motherboard or chipset you are moving it too. As long as its the same operating system. I use it at work and never had a BSOD so far and thats using XP machines.
 
As said, if you keep to the same chipset make, it should be fine. You can just do a repair install of XP if needed which will keep all the data and software.
 
as long as its intel to intel or amd to amd then no problem, just remember to use ide mode for your hard drives as AHCI will cause problems on reboot, then just do the reg tweak to enable AHCI and your done :)

Not always, I have swapped out mobos twice going Intel to Intel . Went from P45 to P67 no problems and before than from 775 to another 775 board. The same Windows install on today and it's as fast as new when running day to day stuff.

I always have AHCI enabled.
 
you can always sysprep your machine and capture an image using imagex, then deploy the image to new hardware with an autounattend.xml file with your settings... you can do all this with the Windows Automated Installation Kit, its freely available from microsoft.
 
I swapped a HDD from an AMD system into an Intel system once, the Intel system already had an HDD with OS installed so I plugged my other drive in expecting it to be the 2nd drive so I could copy my data but it booted from that drive...

And it's still going strong now!! No BSOD or stability issues, no lag/slowdown (no more than expected for an E8400 anyway lol

May well have been a fluke but it worked flawlessly, so it's gotta be worth trying :)
 
As said, if you keep to the same chipset make, it should be fine. You can just do a repair install of XP if needed which will keep all the data and software.

I am going from Nforce to Asus P8H61-I LGA1155/ Intel H61(B3)/ DDR3/ A&GbE/ Mini ITX Motherboard so that is out.
 
I am going from Nforce to Asus P8H61-I LGA1155/ Intel H61(B3)/ DDR3/ A&GbE/ Mini ITX Motherboard so that is out.

The best thing to do then is uninstall all the drivers when you shut down, swap the board over then do a repair install.

Or get Windows 7 ;)
 
Seriously ? This works ?

The time involved reinstalling / configuring is the main reason why I haven't upgraded.

Ideally I'd like to move to a 2600k on a z68 from a p35 s775 - do you think it's possible if I boot the old drive in IDE mode, apply the AHCI patch, reboot in AHCI mode ?
 
Back
Top Bottom