Crashed MB, repair won\'t work on new MB, can\'t Sysprep. VM solution?

CodemasterJD

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I had an XFX 760 MB (?) LGA 775, and it crashed, hard. Couldn't get the MB to boot to anything, although it sort of lived, no display and uncertain POST codes.

Got a new LGA2011, Intel 602 dual CPU motherboard :D

Moved the HD over - which promptly blue screened; even with the same video card, obviously the HAL is SO different and so many MB device drivers have changed.

I can't run 'sysprep' because I can't boot the old motherboard.

Any ideas?

Here's one - what if I used P2V to create a VM of the old hard drive

THEN ran Sysprep on the VM

THEN copied the VM VHD to a physical disk (it's hard to go that way though)

Then used repair to rebuild the O/S?

This was a developers machine, I have SO many pieces of software installed, it'll be a real hassle to reinstall everything. None of it was pirated, so I do have the reinstallation disks, but it's 4+ years old, and I don't look forward to reinstalling all that stuff.

Thoughts?

== John ==
 
Long story short, you're going to have to reinstall Windows.

Reason 1: The HAL is looking for the old hardware with whatever image you create.
Reason 2: The MBR and partition tables are looking for the old motherboard.
Reason 3: If it's an OEM install, it's tied to the old systemboard and you will have to re-activate anyway.

Save your self some heartache, install a new drive, unplug the old drive, reinstall Windows then move all your stuff over.
 

CodemasterJD

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It's not an OEM install.

Partition tables don't "Look" for a motherboard, there's nothing HAL specific in there. But, I think your point is the partitioning is different? It's the same hard drive. I just slid it over. Maybe you're saying the boot loader is tied to the old motherboard. The repair option will wipe that (as would sysprep, IF it could be run on an attached hard drive).

You don't think the P2V would work?

The HAL is replaceable, I've done that any number of times with XP. It's pretty standard when you move something to a private cloud. Sysprep does the same thing - the only wrinkle is the machine has to be bootable to run sysprep. Mine's not.

== John ==
 



You may be able to replace the MBR and partition tables using a Hirens CD if you want to. As for a P2V, it's a 50/50 chance that it will work how you are wanting it to. It's a nature of the beast that when you change a motherboard out on a computer, especially one running Windows, that you will either have to rebuild the MBR or even reinstall Windows.

Have you thought of ghosting, or even cloning, the drive (not through P2V or VM) and attempting to reimage it using a sysprep?
 

rusabus

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I don't think the HAL will be different between the two motherboards. Was your old LGA 775 system a multi-core CPU? If so, then I don't think that is the problem. Even with a uniprocessor HAL, you should still be able to boot on a multi-processor machine.

I'd guess you're having a stop 7b error. You can check it out by pressing F8 before your computer starts trying to boot into Windows and going into the recovery menu. There is an option to disable automatic restart on system failure. That will let you see the BSOD with its full text.

Stop 0x0000007b is caused by the storage controller being different. You may be able to get it to boot on your new motherboard by changing the SATA controller to work in IDE mode (or compatible mode - each manufacturer has its own name for it). This option will be available in the BIOS - probably buried under some sub menu. It is probably currently configured for AHCI mode. After doing that, it will probably boot.

Performing a P2V and then a V2P will work, but will probably introduce other issues, and will take longer than just fixing the other issues.

--Russel
 

CodemasterJD

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How do you do sysprep on a cloned drive that's not bootable? (asking, not arguing).

I would be home free if I could run sysprep ... but it's funny to me that you can only run sysprep if you've already booted on THAT image. I would even think it would be easier to sysprep something that hadn't booted. Very weird.

I've got a hirens but haven't looked at all of the options.

It gets past the boot phase though, just dies when it tries to load all teh drivers.

Well, I just used the backup center with one of the two backups that is working, and it thoughtfully told me that it couldn't restore the files on drive C: that were supposed to go into users and c:\program files. How nice! 555,420 files thoughtfully skipped!

How much of a backup is that? :ouch:

With ntbackup, you could back up the system state, install a blank copy of WinXP, then restore the system state, and it would restore the user specific stuff and program files. I guess with 7 and beyond you have to pray your motherboard always holds up. Absurd.

I guess what I should do going forward is periodically do a full backup, sysprep, then restore, and save the sysprep'd backup in case the motherboard blows. Is this bizarre or what?

Rusabus: automatic restart has been disabled the entire time - weird, huh? I can fiddle with it again though.

I think I should try doing a drive copy first though (I have some extra drives) before I mess with it. Any tools you'd recommend?

== John ==
 

rusabus

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If automatic restart is disabled, do you see the BSOD? Can you post it, or at least the error code for us?

It is definitely a good idea to make a backup image of your drive if you can. Ghost is the easiest tool I've used, but it is commercial software. I've never actually used Clonezilla, but it is free, as is Ghost 4 Linux.

--Russel
 

CodemasterJD

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Well, that's the weird thing, the blue screen pops up and goes away. I've found this several times, my HP laptop is particullary bad with rebooting even though the settings is to not auto-reboot (I'm using an Apple Displayport adapter ... probably it's resisting the unholy alliance).

I'll try again though and post the results.

== John ==