Help Please ?swapping mobo,cpu,while retaining win proxp.

[mrjetskey]

Before I was going to upgrade my mobo and cpu,I decided to wait awhile,now that intel core2duo are so cheap,I'm am going to.Someone had posted a link where it showed how to install drivers for new mobo and whatever else was needed ,before powering down and swapping mobo and cpu,That way I can still use my HD and my copy of windows xp pro that I have,I have a dell with 630 cpu and 925xmobo,and sata hard drive,I just want to swap cpu and mobo without clean install as I have some stock utility that was dl,when I had a large sum of money in a stock acct.I dont have enough to get it now,and it doest let you copy it as it dls straight from website and installs.I really dont want to lose it just now,any ideas I do video encoding and I cant even sleep as long as it takes my 630 to encode 4 g,then burn it to dvd.THanks in advance>Marvin

 

[Mr Wizard]

My suggestion would be too back up all data to another source, CD, DVD, usb drive because there is always that chance while doing this that you will render the hdd to a state where it boots into the bsod. If you have something you really don't want to lose that don't go any farther until you have backed it up.

Tools needed:

Screwdriver remove screws
Driver disc for new mobo new mobo drivers
Advil the headache your causing yourself
Budweiser because
XP pro disk just incase the PC bsod itself to non boot

Step 1.) Uninstall the drivers for your current system, don't reboot after every driver remove them all without rebooting.

Step2.) This all depends on your system, I've done this a few times before but of course the best thing is a fresh install. Load the drivers for the new system one by one, do not reset after every driver. If you get a blue screen in the process you will have to boot to safe mode and remove the driver. If all goes well you will get no blue screen. I've done this perfect before and other times I can't get a whole driver installed.

Step 3.) If your PC did not blue screen you should be able to swap boards and processors and let XP install the drivers. If it did show a bsod than you will have to swap mobos and install the drivers after XP boots. This could still cause a blue screen and cause the os not to boot on either PC in safe mode or not.

The best thing is always a fresh install because there are no pieces of drivers or applications all over the hard drive. Also if you do this without a fresh install you will need to re activate xp, it might prompt you to do that. If all goes well now you can use that budweiser mentioned before and encode the hell out of something.

 

[mrjetskey]

Yes you are right about fresh install,i do have xp disc and the problem is its from dell so i was trying to avoid buying a new os.xp or vista as i have xp pro.and i wanted to keep my trading platform,which is could be a problem ,as i dont have the 25 or 50 k minimum when you dl it,you can b/u it but you cant change it to another hd by copying it for some reason,it doesnt have some files needed to install it as installs from website.i have tried to share it with some trading friends we cant get it to work.and i am not ready to give up xp but i dont want to buy another copy this late in product cycle.It would be so nice if I could just swap out mobo and cpu,and then have the power for encoding video while working online,my 630 doesnt have enough ooph.Well if I backup that file ,I dont know if it will run again if I do a clean install.i keep my hd real,clean ,good fw,av.,spware,no excess trash, i wonder if i could run a vm. then try to see if b/u copy will run ther before ,if it does i guess i could run fresh install but how do i get around it being dell,if i buy diff.mobo and cpu. it used to be no problem with 98se or anything,but i dont mess with windows much now that xp-pro does it all for me .thanks for your help any other ideas ,to keeping my dell xp.os if i change mobo and cpu thanks so much>Marvin