Upgrading Motherboard... Question about Reinstalling Windows.

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Yankeetown1357

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May 28, 2014
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Hello all,
I am upgrading my motherboard in a couple of days (AMD to AMD), and will probably be reinstalling windows. I'm just a little foggy on how the re-installation process works. Do I swap the motherboards, then boot from my optical drive with the windows installation disc? And will all my data on my C: drive be there after doing the fresh install?
I also have a separate E: drive... the data on that won't corrupt right?
 
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clutchc
If the boards are similar enough to let you boot to Win desktop and the system seems stable, you won't have to do a clean install. But doing so would be best, of course.

Once at the desktop, any old M/B drivers wouldn't have loaded anyway. So there's no need to uninstall them unless you just want to free up disk space. If so, do it then. What I would probably do next is run something like CCleaner and do the Clean and Registry portions both. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

That will clean up most of the mess that the Registry will be in. Then I'd reboot and install the new M/B drivers. After that, do a Win Update to see if it finds anything pertaining to the new board.

Keep in mind, you'll have to do a new...
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clutchc

clutchc

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Is this Win 7 x64? If so...
You can try booting to the old Win OS installation if you want. If the boards aren't too dissimilar, you can probably get to the desktop. At that point, you'll have to do some "housecleaning" and install the new board's drivers.

But if you want to do a clean install, yes... install from your Win 7 installation disk. You will loose everything on C: drive when you clean install. Everything on another HDD will still be there, but if pgms, probably not accessible anymore from the new Win 7 installation.
 
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Yankeetown1357

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May 28, 2014
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Ok, yes my windows in 64 bit.
I'm switching cpu sockets, but other than that the motherboards are pretty similar besides the manufacturer. Are these similar enough to not have to clean install? If so... I would uninstall my current motherboard's drivers before making the switch right?
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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If the boards are similar enough to let you boot to Win desktop and the system seems stable, you won't have to do a clean install. But doing so would be best, of course.

Once at the desktop, any old M/B drivers wouldn't have loaded anyway. So there's no need to uninstall them unless you just want to free up disk space. If so, do it then. What I would probably do next is run something like CCleaner and do the Clean and Registry portions both. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

That will clean up most of the mess that the Registry will be in. Then I'd reboot and install the new M/B drivers. After that, do a Win Update to see if it finds anything pertaining to the new board.

Keep in mind, you'll have to do a new activation. If your copy of Win 7 x64 is an OEM (most are), it is legally limited to one PC. In M$'s world, that means it is tied to the M/B it was installed with. So technically you need to buy a new license. But I have never seen them stick to that policy yet and I've swapped boards galore. Just follow through the activation and see what happens. Sometimes it goes right away, sometimes you have to do anther screen where you swear it is being used only on one machine. Once I had to actually talk to a M$ rep. But I've never had an OEM license turned down.
 
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