Windows reinstall when installing new mobo?

[Nils]

Hi,

Is it necessary to reinstall windows when you put a new mobo in your pc? Especially when you change from an Nvidia board to an intel board. Or will reinstalling only the chipset drivers do the trick?

Thanks

 

[badge]

Your hard drive with the Windows installation has all the system/MB drivers for your old MB. If you just hook up that HD with the old installation to the New Intel MB, you very likely will not make it to Windows desktop that way, just about guaranteed. You basically have two options.

1. The best option is to just do a fresh, clean install of Windows OS then load up the new MB CD drivers and utilities. This will work out best.

2. Hook up the old hard drive with the old MB OS/system drivers and do a 'repair install' of Windows. Then load up the new MB system drivers with the MB driver CD.

If your old MB is still working properly, you might consider just putting it away with it's curent HD intact. Save loads of time if you ever want to use the MB again. New SATA HD's are cheap. Use a new HD for the new MB installation.

 

[Nils]

Some questions:

1) reinstalling windows is just booting from the windows cd and then there is an option 'reinstall windows'? Stupid question maybe, but I have never installed a windows before.

2) What is a repair install?

3) What about uninstalling all old drivers before installing the new board?

 

[badge]

1. clean install.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941

To perform a clean installation of Windows XP, follow these steps:
Back up all important information before you perform a clean installation of Windows XP. Save the backup to an external location, such as a CD or external hard disk.
Start your computer from the Windows XP CD. To do this, insert the Windows XP CD into your CD drive or DVD drive, and then restart your computer.

Note To boot from your Windows XP CD, the BIOS settings on your computer must be configured to do this.
When you see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message, press any key to start the computer from the Windows XP CD.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to start Windows XP Setup.
Read the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then press F8.
Follow the instructions on the screen to select and format a partition where you want to install Windows XP.
Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the Windows XP Setup.
If you have successfully installed Windows XP, you are finished. If these steps did not help you install Windows XP, go to the "Next Steps" section.

2. Repair install.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341

Method 2: Repair install of Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD
Note If Windows XP was preinstalled on your computer, you may need the installation CD to reinstall. Contact your computer manufacturer to make sure that you have the installation CD for a repair installation.

To reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD, follow these steps:
Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD drive or DVD drive, and then restart your computer.
When you receive the "Press any key to boot from CD" message on the screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
The following message on the Welcome to Setup screen will appear:
This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run on your computer: To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER. To repair a Windows XP installation by using Recovery Console, press R. To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.
On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.
Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to reinstall Windows XP. After you repair Windows XP, you may have to reactivate your copy of Windows XP. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
310064 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310064/ ) How to troubleshoot Windows XP Setup problems when you upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition
If you successfully completed the reinstallation, congratulations. You are almost done. Please continue to the "After you reinstall Windows XP" section to finish.

If you received an error or if the reinstallation did not finish, unfortunately, this article did not resolve your problem. For your next steps, you may want to ask someone whom you know for help. Or, you may want to contact Microsoft Support to help you resolve this problem.

3. That's a possibility. I would suggest number1, a fresh, new install of your Windows XP OS. After you do a fresh install, you will have to activate/reactivate you MS OS installation. If asked to call the 800 number jsut be sure to say this is the only computer you are using this CD with. You had to replace the MB.

 

[Nils]

Thank you very much. I guess it's about the largest reply I've ever seen!

I guess that when using method 1 you lose all your settings in windows and you keep them when using the second method?

 

[badge]

Yeah, that's right. Buying a new HD to install a clean OS is one solution. Keep the old HD and MB for a while in case you want to use again.

 

[Nils]

If would do a reinstall, what should I go for? XP 32 or 64-bit? I know you can use more than 3.5 GB with 64 bit but I've also heard there are some issues with 64-bit OS's. Is that true?

 

[badge]

Vista 64 Home Premium OEM. Vista 64 bit OS has been tweaked out pretty nearly two years since it's release. For my personal system, I wouldn't consider XP at all. I am starting to move our business to Vista machines. My wife uses Vista 64, so does my son. They love it.

 

[Nils]

Until now I haven't heard even one good thing about vista. I want my system to be rock stable, not crashing while gaming and stuff like that. I simply don't have any confidence in it. Why else is Windows wanting to get rid of it with Windows 7?

 

[badge]

Wanting to build a new a new high tech ultimate personal machine and using Windows XP kind of scares me. I remember my son sitting on my lap in his wet diaper and firing my big time rig up.

 

[Nils]

Sry it took some time to reply, but I still have one question. If you do a clean install of Windows, the setup will automatically reformat the drive you specifie? Will lose all your software installed on it?

 

[badge]

Yes, formatting the HD will erase all the data present.

 

[Nils]

I just booted from my Windows XP PRO SP3 CD and tried to do a repair install. First I had to select the Windows setup I wanted to repair and afterwards the setup asked for the administrator password. Entered it and one second later I got a prompt c:\windows. With the help command I found out you can enter several commands there, but how do you do a repair install because I don't believe it happened in just that single second?

 

[badge]

Go to the second instance of 'repair'. When first prompted to install go that route. Then when promted from the 'install' interface choose 'repair' That is the repair at that point.

 

[badge]

You procede like you are going to do an install. Then at the 'install prompt' there will be an option to press 'r' to do a repair install. That's the repair install you want.

 

[badge]

After you do the repair install, remember to load up the system/chipset drivers and utilities from the new motherboard driver CD.

 

[4745454b]

I just did this when I upgraded from my ATI chipset S939 board to my Intel chipset S775 board. All you have to do BEFORE YOU SHUT DOWN is delete any drivers on the motherboard. Delete the LAN and sound drivers, and change the SATA/IDE drivers to windows default. At this point you can shut down, swap boards, and boot up again. I had to wait quite awhile while it loaded the new USB and other drivers, but I didn't have to spin any disks. The repair install will work, just takes longer. It took me maybe 20 minutes to change the hardware, and another 30 or so to load the drivers. Something to keep in mind for next time.

BTW, as long as you don't change "brands", you shouldn't have to do this. All chipset manufacturers went to their own standard drivers awhile ago. As long as you stick with one, you shouldn't have to worry about changing motherboards.

 

[badge]

That is a good way to recover your data from a hard when the MB goes south. So you upgraded from a Socket 939. There is a brand new chipset drive for AMD NF4 chipset on Nvidia driver downlaod. I have three S939 NF4's still running. New life in to these bad bois. 8)

 

[4745454b]

S939 was great. A shame that AMD didn't release more dual cores for them. S939 with a dual core and 2GBs of ram should be enough for most games. Add in that you can still get some of this stuff rather cheap, it gets even better. The 3500+ is now my wifes machine, I'm still on the look out for a dual core.

 

[badge]

I have the very first dual core ever released. AMD 4800X2 Socket 939. I use it often (every Monday and Friday all day, funny). A8N32-SLI Deluxe/8600GT x 2/2 GB OCZ Platinum PC3200/ Vista 32. This is a good machine. It runs right along since I installed Vista a few months ago. DC is very effective and allows for comftorable multitasking.

Then I have the second greatest single core ever. The FX 55 on an A8n-SLI Deluxe. I use it evry tuesday, wednesday and Sat. at work. LOL.

Then I have a Mach Speed Socket S939 NF4 with a 4000+ San Diego I use with my old Pinnacle Studio Windows XP setup to transfer VHS to DVD. It's slow. LOL. I'm living in the past.

Tiger Direct had a new retail socket 939 Opteron DC available a month or so ago.

(I also have FOUR AMD socket 754 machines running everyday! LOL.)

 

[Nils]

Well, when the CD booted, a menu appeared showing three options: set up Windows, repair install and quit the setup. I pressed r for the repair install. Afterwards I had to follow the steps I already mentioned in my previous post.

 

[badge]

This is the step you should take (taken from the repair install instructions in the earlier post).


So you have booted to the CD and the installation console shows up. Procede like this.

1. To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.


2. (Do not do this!!!!!!) To repair a Windows XP installation by using Recovery Console, press R. To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.


3. Do this >>>>>>>> Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.


4. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.


5. Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.

It is possible a repair is not possible. If your registry is corrupt, sometime this repair from the OS CD is not possible.

 

[badge]

Well, when the CD booted, a menu appeared showing three options: set up Windows, repair install and quit the setup. I pressed r for the repair install. Afterwards I had to follow the steps I already mentioned in my previous post.

Choose 'SET UP WINDOWS'. Repair from the next screen.

 

[Nils]

Thanks badge, I got it now.
I have another question you might be able to help me with. I got another pc here which runs xp sp2 and i'd like to upgrade it to sp3. I tried it with automatic updates, but for some reasons it does not start downloading. Is there a website were I can download the setup so I can install sp3 manually?
The only setup i found was for IT managers to upgrade all pc's on a network.

 

[badge]

I believe this is the stand alone download for SP3.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en