how to replace mother board?

[OldChipper]

My mother board has failed and I have purchased a NOS Intel complete with CPU.
Now please don’t laugh or shake your head! Hear me out first, please! This is a 1999 desktop which has windows 98SE. It’s important that I don’t lose the auto-Cad program and data that is on the hard drive. You see this old PC is only used to control my little CNC hobby milling machine. I can’t replace the program (no longer available) or redo all the runs I have made over the years. I’m too old to learn a new program (75) even if I could afford it. I have the 98SE CD and product key. But, is there a way I can do this with out doing a clean install. I don’t know how I would activate the OS anyway. This PC was never setup for the internet use. No phone line out in the shop anyway! From what I have been able to find out, it will be luck at best. Since 98 isn’t supported any longer, does Microsoft really care about activating.
I have an idea but don’t know if it would work. If I install another hard drive and get it working, then made my old drive a second drive (slave). Would I be able to get to the data, etc? Thanks

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Unless that motherboard is >8-10 years old it's highly doubtful you'll find any drivers for it.

 

[benali72]

I'm not sure I completely understand your situation (need more details), but here are several points --

Windows 98 does not have Windows Production Activation -- it pre-dates that. Installing Win 98 only requires entering a proper authorization key when you first install it. However, the Registry does tend to tie a particular OS install to particular hardware. You generally can't move a Win 98 disk across machines and expect to boot up ok. If your strategy is to replace the failed motherboard with another just like it you won't have any activation issues.

You can get your CAD data files off the disk simply by attaching that disk to another computer and accessing them that way. Of course, if they are in a proprietary format read only by your Auto-CAD program, you won't be able to interpret what's in them.

 

[OldChipper]

Thanks guys,
Ran into to many unknowns. So I managed to find enough parts to build new old machine and installed Win-98 on it. purchased an enclosure. for the old drive and copied the data from it.
keeping it all on a flash drive this time. The things we do, to keep our man toys!!