building new system, using old hardrive?

marksas

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Jul 13, 2006
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It's been about 6 or 7 years since i've built a system, last was an WinNT box. My question is, will i run into any problems if just pop in my IDE hardrive which is only a couple years old and is running XP, into a system with all new parts. Without a fresh install, will XP have a hard time installing all the new components? Heres the probable new system:

Coolermaster Centurion 5 case
AMD 64 3500+ Venice
Asus A8N5X MOBO
Corsair 1GB Dual channel kit
DVDR - Samsung 16X DVDR+-
Video Card - yet to be determined
PSU - yet to be determined (400-500W)
 

Scarchunk

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Yes, you will have driver issues. Especially if going from different cpu brands. Your best bet is to pull the data you need off the hard drive and reformat. I seriously doubt that you'll be able to boot that older harddrive in the new system.
 

ArbY

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You opted to put together a socket 939 system. I would recommend getting AM2. It's new, it's somewhat future-proof and would be a bit faster than an equivalent s939 system.

Now on topic.
You will need to reformat that hard-drive if you plan on using it with the new system. You will not be able to just plug it in and let it run. That old hard-drive has all the drivers for your older components installed on it. Such as, the chipset, display, audio, CD, and others. I'd be surprised if you even got as far as seeing the Windows loading screen.
 

4745454b

Titan
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Ok, heres the truth. For the most hassle free way of doing this, format and reinstall. But if you can't/don't want to, you don't have to. If you plug it in and try to boot, you'll see the loading windows sign for about a second, maybe two, before it reboots or blue screens, whichever you have it setup on. Take your windows CD, and put it in. Hit enter when it asks, we want to install a new build. (don't hit R, recovery console won't help.) Point windows to the same partition you have your current build on, and tell it to install there. Once you've done this, it will tell you it found a current windows build there, and would you like to repair this? At this point you say yes, and windows will "reinstall" over your current build.
Once its done, "all" of your programs will work, and you won't lose any data. I say "all" because some programs will need to be reinstalled, or activated, or XXX. I've used this method before, and it works more often then not. The last time I tried it was with this machine, and I had so many issues with it, I gave up and installed from scratch. (moved from a NF3 250 to a ATI 200)
 

marksas

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Jul 13, 2006
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Thanks for all the info, that was the answer i was expecting. As far as AM2 vs. a socket 939 system; can you build a similar "budget" machine with the AM2 components? I also was under the impression that 939 was still very upgradeable for the future, am i wrong?
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
As with all things in life, it depends. You can build a budget system, but I feel the lowest price computers, at the moment are S939. While there might not be much of a difference between the S939 and AM2 CPUs and motherboards, the difference in price between DDR1 and DDR2-800 ram is bigger. You will pay a little extra for that system. (from what I've heard, you need the DDR2-800 inorder for the system to be faster then a S939.)
As for the upgradability of a S939, that depends also. Depending on what CPU you start with, you might be able to upgrade, but AMD has already said they won't make new CPUs for 939. This means that (at the moment) you can move up to a dual core if you have a single core, but you can't move up to the FX-62, or the 6000. (Seeing as Intel is regaining the performance crown, and selling their CPUs cheap, AMD might change this...) S939 motherboards house more then just CPUs however. You still have dual channel ram, SATA/SATAII, PCI, PCIe, USB, Firewire, and a host of other plugs that will provide the ability to upgrade. You might not have the fastest CPU, but you could still have a dual core, with 2GBs of ram, a 750GB perp harddrive, with a physics card. (don't forget SLI/CF, and the host of raid options available if your into that.)
 

marksas

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Thanks for the build suggestions. I've always been partial to Asus for Mobo's. Sticking with the athalon 64 for now will keep my budget down as well as that Corsair memory kit, i was planning to buy Corsair anyways so the price is about the same. Thanks guys!