My old mobo died. Can I just plug my existing H Drive into a new build

[jlaavenger]

My old mobo died. Can I just plug my existing Hard Drive into a 90% new build?
My system was so old I just opted to buy pretty much everything new. I'm hoping I can put the new Motherboard, CPU, Video Card and case together. Insert my existing hard drive, plug it in and it will sense the changes and correct itself. Is that to much to hope for? My current drive is Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit, so I guess the new memory could cause an issue. Any advice?

I've already purchased the following components:
I7 975
Cooler Master v8
ASUS Rampage Extreme
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

And I'm looking at the Cooler Master Storm Scout case on sale this week for $69.99
The PSU I'm still deciding on.

I know I'll need to upgrade to Windows 64 bit eventually but I want to save what's on my drive first.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Your chances of having it work without any problems are slim to none. The old HD has drivers and registry entries for your old hardware. Your best option would probably be to re-install the OS on the same drive. Vista will allow you to do this and just put all your old files in a Windows.old folder.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Vista-Windows-old-47133.shtml

 

[kufan64]

^Agreed

Anyway, I'm not positive about Vista, but I know if XP detects a huge hardware change, it requires that you reactivate it immediately before you can even log in again.

 

[wathman]

A guy at work did this with his home laptop with windows 7 RC, and it actually worked and reconfigured itself to work properly on the first boot attempt. The problem is that all the old drivers and garbage in the registry makes the bootup painfully long. In the end, clean install is the way to go, regardless of OS.

 

[jsc]

I would get a new hard drive for a boot drive, then install the old drive as a secondary drive. That way, you can gradually port over your old data files. Programs will need to be reloaded.