Re: Replace motherboard: looking for suggestions

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From: R. McCarty (PcEngWork-NoSpam__at_mindspring.com)
Date: 09/18/04 

Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:10:49 GMT

It's the mass storage controller driver that limits Motherboard
swap outs. There is one way to avoid the "Repair" install. Before
you shutdown the PC for the swap change the IDE controller
drivers to a "Generic" type. This allows XP to boot whether the
new card has Intel, Via, SiS, nVidia chipsets.

 It's not a perfect operation - but works. Just be aware that as
XP re-enumerates all the new hardware you'll likely have a
Device Manager tree full of "Phantoms" from the old configuration.

 This won't work if the Mass Storage controller changes from IDE
to SCSI or RAID. You may also experience issues if the newer
Motherboard requires a different HAL (Hardware Abstraction
Layer). Like going from a ACPI to ACPI Multiprocessor PC.

 I don't recommend this for day-to-day upgrades, the Repair XP
procedure is still best.

"Lee Shipman" <lshipman01@charter.net> wrote in message
news:10kofu8f7bubt55@corp.supernews.com...
> Will soon be changing the motherboard/CPU/memory on my winxp home
> installation. I've looked at *many* comments about doing this, and it
> appears that the most reliable procedure is booting from the CD, but not
> using the repair console option. However, I understand this procedure
> removes all the Microsoft patches & updates, and if possible, I'd like to
> avoid re-downloading & reinstalling all that stuff. I haven't installed
> SP-2
> yet; will plan to do this later.
>
> I've read of some success by using an alternate procedure: just swapping
> the
> motherboard, rebooting, and allowing Windows to detect the changes &
> install
> the new drivers. BUT, before shutting down the old computer, I'm told that
> I
> should go into the device manager & delete the items specific to the
> existing motherboard. I understand all of that & am comfortable doing it,
> but am just wondering if anyone has used this procedure with good success.
>
> I use the Acronis True Image program and will have imaged everything to a
> separate drive before I start this, so am not concerned about losing
> existing data & installation customization. The advantage of this
> alternate
> procedure would be that the Microsoft patches & updates are retained, but
> if
> the overall installation will be left less stable, I'm willing to bite the
> bullet & go the first route.
>
> I'd be grateful for any observations/suggestions/first-hand experience!
> Thanks....Lee
>
>

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