Repairing XP after new mobo install

[marksoccer105]

I installed a new motherboard (biostar nvidea 2 chipset) in a friends computer which previous motherboard fried. When I started the computer it restarts when loading XP, this is probably due to the fact that the previous mobo was a VIA chipset. I tried repairing XP, but the repair kept crashing. I really dont want to reformat the hard drive, since they will need to reinstall everything. I am currently reinstalling windows to a new folder (windows2). Is there any way I can fix windows without doing this reinstall or reformatting? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Gamingfreak]

ive heard about this happening, sometimes people can change the motherboard with no problems and sometimes they cant, u will have to reinstall windows

 

[marksoccer105]

theres no way to install mobo drivers in windows without actually booting windows? Also, since I have gotten Windows to boot after installing to Windows2, everything except the user accounts is the same. Is there a way I can copy the old registry into the newly installed Windows? Or would it be best to remove their documents into a seperate folder and reinstall over the previous windows? This way everything but the registry and user accounts should remain intact. Thanx for the input.

 

[marksoccer105]

I finally got it to work. I reinstalled windows to windows2 as stated above. Then I deleted some of the mobo drivers out of the windows folder and replaced them with ones from windows2. Then I repaired windows and it worked. I had to reactivate... but that was to be expected.