So... anyone managed to change a motherboard without reinstaling XP?

[agallag]

Sysprep is much easier. It's on the XP cd, in the support directory, in the deploy.cab file. Select the PNP option, and don't regenerate your SID. Reboot and all devices are redetected. Quick and painless.

[Nuno]

Ok, I found it and extracted deploy.cab to a folder on C:. How do I use it? just run sysprep.exe? Sorry to ask, but I don´t have the motherboard yet, and I really wouldn´t like to try it now and being forced to reinstall all the drivers next reboot...

[Seaspray]

New mobo

In my experience its not essential to reinstall after a new mobo, but it can be helpful in terms of stability and performance to not have all those old device drivers hanging around or whatever.

I've done it twice with no real problems, although I always reformat and reinstall every 6 months or so anyway, just to get rid of all the junk I can't seem to resist cluttering my system with.

The first time I went from a Gigabyte KT133 to an Elite K7S5A using Win Me and everything was fine. I didn't even need to bother with the driver CD that game with the mobo, everything worked just fine with the Via drivers!!

More recently I went from the Elite K7S5A (SiS 735) to an MSi 746f Ultra (SiS 746FX) and again, everything was fine. Although for some reason the 746fx reports my hard drive as DMA mode 2 (Which I think is DMA 66) whereas the 735 reported it as DMA100 (which it should be). This was running XP Professional by the way.

Later I reformatted and on first rebooting the BIOS reported the hard disc as DMA mode 5 (Is this 133?), but after reinstalling windows its back to reporting as DMA mode 2 again. I don't know why this is but since I reinstalled I don't see that it can be anything to do with Windows. I don't think it really makes any difference anyway, its just a little annoying.

PS Does anyone know why it seems only MSi are making Socket A motherboards with SiS chipsets these days?

Thanks

~J

[UtwigMU]

Swapping your board without so much as a reinstall (243kB of images)

[agallag]

Also in the deploy.cab file is a file called deploy.chm. It's a help file, and it has very detailed instructions on how to use sysprep. Look in the section called "Preparing the Installation With Sysprep".

The command line options you'll want to use are -pnp and -nosidgen.

[Marshmallowman]

I have done the changeover in XP.

But I was booting off an external RAID controller, which I had drivers installed for already..

But at some point you going to have to do the full install anyway...

[Technoid]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Swapping your board without so much as a reinstall (243kB of images)

Exactly what I said

[Nuno]

Ok, I have to report a total disaster.
I followed these steps and then assembled the new board. I tried to boot it up - nothing. Clear CMOS - nothing. Then I tried the last step (I studied the lesson earlier) and booted up with the Insert key pressed. Bingo.
Just to find out that on loading XP, I got BSOD´s like mad. Ok, I should have know it. Problem is that on the next reboot, nothing hapenned. Black screen, and this time the insert key trick didn´t work. So I cleared CMOS, unplugged power cord, removed CMOS battery, unplugged everything except VGA, 1 stick of RAM and the floppy disk, nothing. I´ve got a bad board.

I reassembled the sytem with the K75SA and everything was fine. Except for XP, that got completely trashed. How nice.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Nuno

I reassembled the sytem with the K75SA and everything was fine. Except for XP, that got completely trashed. How nice.

Well, you did set a system restore point, yes?

[Nuno]

Yes. It doesn´t work. I tried the "repair" install, but it BSOD´s with a IRQ_LESS_BLAH_BLAH error.

Oh, well. Being working since yesterday, I´ll try what I can do in safe mode later.