MoBo swapping questions

[zuluprime]

I want to swap my motherboard and I am wondering what do I need to do to make it as painless as possible in terms of OS and driver errors, etc. I have never swapped a mother board before, just installed it from scratch.
Any suggestions or knowledge to share please?
I will also install 8gb of Kingston HyperX DDR3.
I want to upgrade to this Asus M5A78LM_LX Plus and keep the same processor until I buy an FX processor upgrade in the future.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A78LM_LX/

My old current set up is this:


Operating System
MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
CPU
AMD Phenom II X4 840 41 °C
Propus 45nm Technology
RAM
6.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 400MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
Gateway RS780 (AM2) 46 °C
Graphics
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (Acer Incorporated [ALI])
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series (XFX Pine Group) 44 °C
CrossFire Disabled
Hard Drives
596GB Western Digital WDC WD6400AAKS-22A7B2 ATA Device (SATA) 31 °C
Optical Drives
Optiarc DVD RW AD-7233S ATA Device
Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device

 

[Supermuncher85]

I've never upgraded without reinstalling a fresh copy of windows.

Some say they got it working using the recovery function from the windows media, but I've never had such luck.

 

[alvine]

when swapping mobos you need to do a clean install of the OS because your hard drive still has chipset drivers for your old mobo and you will simply not be able to get past the windows loading screen because incorrect drivers / hardware combo

 

[smorizio]

if your lucky and i mean real lucky in booting into safe mode and removing all the old mb drivers.then booting up on the new mb with out errors is going to be a long shot. also you have to buy a new oem number or call microsoft as soon as you replace the mb windows will want you to re-register itself.

 

[alvine]

backup your data before swapping just in case

 

[mrsteve0924]

this worked for me, but i was running windows xp

http://www.icompute.info/move_xp_part2.htm

 

[zuluprime]

Thanks every one! Your advice worked well. I am typing on it as we speak