Upgrade problems

[Animebando]

Hey. Ive done a few builds before (one of my own, two for friends) and i thought it was time to upgrade mine. So, i took out my old Socket A (3000+) and put in a new Socket 939 (3700+). Everything went smooth, i got my graphics card (6600GT), sound card (Audigy 2ZS), and wirelss in with no problems. Same with the 1GB of RAM. Everything was good to go... until i turned it on. It started up and got to the Windows boot screen, when it flashed some blue error screen (not the usual blue screen of death, something different but it goes by too fast for me to read). Ive tried starting in safe mode, last known good config, everything. So, my question is... do I need to reinstall Windows? Ive heard that sometimes when you put in a new mobo and/or cpu Windows doesn't know what to do because the system isn't the same and it freaks out and won't boot. I hope that isn't true, because it is a bit of a pain to reinstall everything on a comp (all of my games are on a secondary harddrive, but only about half of them don't use system files... so the other half would need to be reinstalled as well, needless to say). Please tell me there is some other way to get it to boot without having to reinstall or repair Windows. Thanks for you time. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Emerald]

will it boot into save mode?

 

[Animebando]

Nope. I can't get it to boot Windows no matter what. I even tried booting from the driver CD that came with the mobo to see if there was anything on there that would help. The only thing that i could run from the CD was drivers for the SATA (which i don't use). Im afraid reinstalling is my only option...

 

[fishmahn]

Its best to reinstall windows when doing a mobo swap. If you stay with the same chipset you may be able to get away with just plug & play like you tried.

Boot to the XP CD and do a repair install. That may let you keep your existing install. I've heard that it works, and I've heard that it doesn't... but its worth a try.

Mike.

 

[Animebando]

Thanks. I tried that and it worked. I got everything up and running now. I just wish I didnt have to reinstall most of my progz. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.