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I am upgrading the motherboard, cpu, and memory from my computer. The old hardware was an ASUS A7S333 mobo, Athlon XP 1600, and 768MB of Kingston PC2100 memory. I am replacing it with an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo, Athlon XP 2600 (Barton), and a 1GB of Kingston Hyper-X PC2700 memory. My question is will the current harddrive be able to boot connected to the new hardware and re-configure itself or do i need to re-format the drive? The OS is WinXP Pro.
You may end up with BSOD since the chipsets are different.
Advise a clean install.
Additional note, if applicable, WindowsXP Service Pack 2 is available for download.
I think I am going to feel stupid after I ask this but, what does does BSOD mean? I am pretty sure I know what BS stands for but can you clarify the whole thing for me. Yeah a clean install is not out of the question but I just wanted to see if I could save myself a few hours.
Thanks
You should be able to do a repair install of XP. And BSOD means Blue Screen of Death. Something some win98 users know well, me included. ;)
Intructions are here:
Repair XP
BSOD = Blue Screen Of Death, what you get when your computer goes on strike.
Depending on your OS you should be able to do a repair instal to maintain your data and settings.
Win98 for example will normally boot and then allow you to update MotherBoard etc drivers.
WinXP may require you to boot with your WinXP CD and do a repair instal to pick up the new drivers.
Dennis
The issue you'll face is that (as Shinma said) you're going from a Sis chipset based board to an Nvidia one. However, if you pre-load (install) the Nvidia drivers prior to the last shutdown with the old board you can probably get away without having to do either a clean or repair install.
So if I preform this "repair install", would that be the same as a fresh install but with having all my old programs installed already?
Thanks!!!
Yes all your programs files will be intact after a repair install the only thing you would have to reinstall is all updates/sp1 and hotfixes.