Upgrading mobo and cpu

I am planning to replace my Tyan board and Celeron 466 with an ECS K7S5A and Athalon XP 1600. Can I just swap the board and cpu and reconnect everything in my case, or will I need to set up my operating system again?

I am running Win XP. I will also be upgrading the power supply at the same time to make sure I have enough juice to keep the system operating smoothly.

better format the hard disk and reinstall the OS.

if you have more than one partition, you can just copy your data to some other partition and format the C drive.

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

my C drive is just 2GB. that also helps if I have to install winNT on it, I can make it FAT16 partion anytime! I reformat my C drive every two months or often.

I even used to make 2GB C for my clients, but they dont bother where an app is being installed, default is C so 2GB fills up fast. So I make them a 5GB or 8GB primary partition these days, especially since 20GB or larger disks have been around.

I also move all the important folders, the Application Data, Fonts, favorites in Windows dir and the My Documents to D drive. The idea is, if windows crashes or virus attacks (most viruses will wipe out only C drive since it is the only one it can assume to be present), I wont have to look for and backup files in DOS command line. I like DOS command line, but searching and copying files especially those long files names with ~1, ~2 is hectic.

you can install all your application on D, many apps work fine without actually reinstalling, like Office. I follow the following scheme for partitioning:
C = <b>C</b>ontrol: the Operating System that controls your machine. Make it as small as possible
D = <b>D</b>ata or <b>D</b>evelopment: all your data and application you use to develop software. Make it quite high, almost half of the disk size
E = <b>E</b>ntertain: all your MP3s, RAs, games. All the remaining space.

I guess three are enough, if all all I have to make a fourth one, I name it as <b>F</b>altoo, meaning Extra, Useless!

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

yeah, I once did it on my own disk, but was confused when I moved the disk from primay master to secondary slave!

this verbose friendly names are easier to remember for my clients.

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

Don't waste the 60$ on Partition Magic, you're only going to use it a few times in your life (this only applies to end-users), instead go here: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html and download GNU Parted, it's free, it works, and it's Linux (relax Windows users, it runs off a diskette which can be created using RAwrite.exe (you'll find it on their website I believe). Just be sure to defrag your harddrive first (duh).

Me "I bought a TNT2 M64, the BIOS says its a Vanta"
IOMagic "Theyre the same card"
Me "Um, no"