upgrading

jordan26 · 11 Mar 2013 at 19:58

i am changing my motherboard, ram and cpu. These are different to my old set up, will I be able to drop my old hard drive from my old set up which had windows 7 on or will I need to format it?

Grimley · 11 Mar 2013 at 20:00

No, it will crash or BSOD. Best to format & reinstall.

dacads · 11 Mar 2013 at 20:01

It is recommended you do a fresh install when changing motherboard

jordan26 · 11 Mar 2013 at 20:04

what a ****er Thanks again.

Gav_881 · 11 Mar 2013 at 22:28

Win 7 may be able to cope if you use sysprep, the idea behind this is it removes the drivers and prepares the system for a first time run up. However its hit and miss as to your success with it and TBH your best off just going for a fresh install.

Philip Perfect · 11 Mar 2013 at 22:38

The problem is that Windows installs a lot of drivers for motherboard components and the like when the OS is installed, and does not leave a big folder full of alternative drivers sitting around on the off chance that you want to change components one day. Therefore, if you do change the motherboard, Windows attempts to use the drivers that it currently has installed - but which are for other hardware.

As said above, at this point the only real way to proceed is a reinstall.

ExRayTed · 12 Mar 2013 at 09:44

I've swapped out motherboards before and not had to reinstall windows..in fact I've done it several times. All that needed changing was drivers. Whats the worst that will happen? Give it a go and see

Doomedspeed · 12 Mar 2013 at 10:19

ExRayTed said:
I've swapped out motherboards before and not had to reinstall windows..in fact I've done it several times. All that needed changing was drivers. Whats the worst that will happen?

Grimley said:
it will crash or BSOD. Best to format & reinstall.

ubersonic · 12 Mar 2013 at 11:41

jordan26 said:
i am changing my motherboard, ram and cpu. These are different to my old set up, will I be able to drop my old hard drive from my old set up which had windows 7 on or will I need to format it?

Should be able to just drop it in, Windows 7/8 are incredibly good at moving between systems and will just resort to default generic drivers if they don't recognize the hardware their in. As long as AHCI doesn't change that's the usual problem.

hakank68 · 12 Mar 2013 at 16:50

is there a big difference between win7 proffessional and ultimate ?

ubersonic · 12 Mar 2013 at 16:54

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/products/compare#T1=tab01

Comparison

wazza300 · 12 Mar 2013 at 17:02

depends what chipsets your moving from/to

some will let you and install needed drivers for you and some will bsod

you can put windows in "out of the box state" google it but never tried it myself

hakank68 · 12 Mar 2013 at 22:03

ubersonic said:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/products/compare#T1=tab01

Comparison

i know that there are a lot of features but is there really a difference in speed, is it worth paying extra ??

ubersonic · 12 Mar 2013 at 22:10

hakank68 said:
i know that there are a lot of features but is there really a difference in speed, is it worth paying extra ??

Oh god no.

Im pretty much certain that 99% of the people who bought Ultimate over professional did so because (A): It was called ULTIMATE and (B): It came in a black box