Do I have to completely re-install windows?

[beauknowsdiddly]

I was hoping that I could just slap my HDD from my old system to my new one, load the mobo drivers and it would work without losing all my applications. But Windows won't boot, (Vista Home Premium) The windows screen comes up for less than a second and then reboots to the boot screen, (start windows normally, safe mode, etc.,)

I put the hdd back on the old board and loaded the chipset drivers for my new board but that didn't do it, I put in my Vista cd and tried doing a repair (Windows could not repair automatically)

I was just hoping I could do this without losing all my awesome applications. Is there a way around this without completely reinstalling Windows?

Old Board

Motherboard Supplier ASUS
System BIOS Supplier ASUS/Award
Board Form Factor uATX
Processor Brand Intel
Processor Socket Type mPGA478
Processor Family Pentium 4HT
Maximum Processor Core Frequency Up to 3.2 GHz P4 Northwood
Processor Front Side Bus 800/533/400 MHz
Hyper Threading Support Yes
Processor VRM Specification Northwood FMB2
Chipset 'North Bridge' 865G
Chipset 'South Bridge' ICH5
Super I/O SMsC LPC47M192-NC
Flash BIOS Device Type and Density FWH 4 Mbit
Memory Type DDR SDRAM (Supports duel channel)
Memory Speed PC3200 (400 MHz),

PC2700 (333 MHz),

PC2100 (266 MHz)
Memory Sockets Four DDR DIMM (184-pin)
Single or Dual Channel Dual System Memory
Maximum Memory Supported 4GB (4 x 512MB) unbuffered (HP and Compaq recommend 2GB)
AGP Graphics Support Yes
AGP Graphics Maximum Mode AGP 8x
Integrated Graphics Supplier Intel
Integrated Graphics Shared (UMA) Memory Up to 64 MB Intel DVMT- dynamic (32 MB if less than 256 MB system memory)
Graphics Configuration Integrated on motherboard
Graphics Connector AGP 8x (available)
TV-out Device or Configuration No
Integrated Audio Type AC'97
AC'97 Codec Device Realtek ALC650
5.1 (Dolby) Channel Audio Support Yes, Six speaker mode (requires audio driver and software setting changes)
Passive Speaker Output (amplifed) Speaker-out header
Rear Audio Jacks Microphone,

Line-in,

Line-out,
Front Audio Connectors Headphones,

Microphone,

Line-in
Ethernet 10/100 LAN Supplier PCI Realtek RT8101L
Ethernet Configuration Integrated, Down
IEEE 1394 Support Configuration: Integrated on motherboard

MAC/PHY Device: TI TSB43AB22

Maximum transfer rate: 400MBps

Ports: Two total (1 front, 1 back)
IDE/ATAPI UDMA Modes 2 IDE connectors Supports. 2 IDE devices on each connector. Supports UDMA 100/66/33 - requires an 40 pin/80 conductor cable for UDMA 66 and 100 disk drives

2 SATA connectors Supports. 1 Serial ATA-150 disk drive on each connector
Expansion Slots One AGP,

Three PCI,

One Ultra ATA
USB Ports Supports up to 8 USB v2.0
USB Front/Rear Options Up to four front, four rear
Rear External Ports One serial,

One parallel,

One floppy,

Two PS/2 (keyboard and mouse),

One IEEE 1394,

Four USB,

One VGA Monitor
Front External Ports Two USB, One IEEE 1394
Fan support Headers for CPU and System

CPU Fan Speed Control for active fansink

System Fan Speed Control
Available Manufacturer Options Integrated graphics (G),

Integrated LAN (L),

Six speaker mode, Dolby 5.1 (6)

Integrated 1394 (E)


Old Processor

Intel Core Duo E4500 2.20GHz

New Board

Socket 1156
CPU (Max Support) i3/i5/i7
AM3 CPU Ready N/A
FSB / Hyper Transport Bus 6.4GT/s
Chipset Intel® H55
DDR2 Memory N/A
DDR3 Memory DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/2000*/2133* (OC)
Memory Channel Dual
DIMM Slots 4
Max Memory (GB) 16
PCI-Ex16 1
PCI-E Gen 2.0 Gen2 (1x16)
PCE-Ex4 N/A
PCI-Ex1 1
PCI 1
IDE 1
SATAIII N/A
SATAII 6
RAID N/A
LAN 10/100/1000*1
TPM 1
USB 3.0 ports (Rear) N/A
USB 2.0 ports (Rear) 6
Audio ports (Rear) 6
Serial ports (Rear) N/A
Parallel ports (Rear) N/A
1394 ports (Rear) N/A
eSATA N/A
Display Port N/A
VGA 1
HDMI 1
DVI 1
VGA Share Memory (MB) 512
DirectX DX10
Form Factor M-ATX
DrMOS N/A
APS Y
Sideport Memory N/A
SLI N/A
3-way SLI N/A
Hybrid SLI N/A
CrossFire N/A
Hybrid CrossFire N/A
D-LED2 N/A
Green Power Genie N/A

New Processor

Intel Core i3-550 3.2Ghz 4M LGA1156 CPU

 

[rwpritchett]

It's really not a good idea to swap an existing OS installation into a new system. My best guess of your problem is that Windows is unable to load because of the SATA drivers that are loaded for the old motherboard won't work with the new motherboard and that's why it cuts out and reboots.

 

[goatsword]

The answer is yes, you will have to rebuild. You are moving to a new architecture.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

yeah I figured as much :-(, Just wishful thinking I suppose.

Thank you very much guys I really appreciate you!

Beau

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Best answer selected by beauknowsdiddly.