Have a HD with WindowsXP on it, and need to know how to get it working on new system?

Sylver123 · 30 Jan 2008 at 19:01

Hello!

As some of you may know from my posts on the forum, i`ll be buying a new system soon, but the problem is, I would prefer to use me existing Hard Drive with my Bootable Windows XP already installed on it. I need to know what's the best method of getting this windows working without re-install of it, on completely new hardware? I know about changing motherboards tweak, witch is this one ive quoted below, but is there any othere thing I need to do to my windows to get it up and running on new system, like uninstall certain system drivers, etc, that could conflict with new Motherboard/CPU change, and prevent booting strat into the windows?

Thank you for helpful answers

This is not mine so I cannot take credit but Andy-S in the Hardware and Drive Support forum passed this one on to me - a must know tweak.
Before you swap out the current motherboard go to device manager and select the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller and select your current storage controller. Right click,
select update driver and select install from a list or specific location. Click don't search I will choose the driver to install and select the standard dual channel IDE controller.
This will prevent the inaccessable boot device blue screen. I have done this multiple times on different platforms with no problems.
Also I found that booting the first time with the new motherboard is best done in the Safe mode where XP will install the drivers it needs and at the same time you can install the new motherboard drivers from its CD.
This saved me doing a repair or a reinstall of XP. My whole system came right up and worked great and very stable.

Sylver123 · 30 Jan 2008 at 19:32

Butters said:
This is quite simple but never seems to work 100% accurately.

The easiest thing to do is open device manager and uninstall every device driver.

Job done.

You mean the most important ones, like in the System Devices tree of device manager?

Sylver123 · 31 Jan 2008 at 08:34

Was wondering if anyone knows of a good free system driver cleaner software that can be used to uninstall certain system drivers, etc, that could conflict with new Motherboard/CPU change?

Sylver123 · 31 Jan 2008 at 14:12

Butters said:
ideally you'd need to uninstall everything.

USB, Audio, Modem, LAN, Video, Drives, etc, as these will all be re-defined by the new MOBO driver CD

Is there any software available that can do this for me, and I just need to select the ones I want to uninstall, then its all automatic, instead of me having to manually uninstall them all myself? I would prefer a driver uninstaller that can also remove System Devices drivers as well.

Sylver123 · 31 Jan 2008 at 15:11

Uriel said:
Assuming you have an XP disc, follow Microsoft's advice for repairing a failed motherboard / repair install. I've done this before and my system worked 100% fine afterwards.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824125

Chances are that you will need to reactivate XP, so hope you've got a retail licence.

Yes, I know about this method but would rather not go that way as you have to reinstall all your windows updates, service packs, etc.