Must I reformat if I replace my motherboard?

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I have done this several times and formatting and starting fresh is the best way, especially if you can add a new drive to the mix and increase drive space. Install the OS to the new drive and use the other one for additional space as a data drive.

For people that just can't start over, I have also had success with XP doing a repair installation. This loads the correct drivers for the new chipset so XP runs without having to reinstall all your programs. You may have to load some drivers seperately, like the intigrated network and sound cards, but this is true with a format, also. The advantage here is you can be back up and running in less than an hour.

I was wondering about a certain issue I have realted to this. I want to replace my motherboard with one that uses more and better RAM (perhaps a new processors wouldn't hurt either) I know that I must reformat the drive containing the o/s but I also have a larger drive I use for storage and most of my new programs/games and I wonder if I must reformat this one as well. I've downloaded alot of program updates for some and would prefer not to download them again though something tells me that attempting just a switch on the board and master drive will not be enough.

You don't need to reformat, if that drive is going to be the "second" drive. The only one I recommend reformatting is the one that the operating system will be installed on.

hi,leo. i also met this problem and have formatted the harddrive on another machine by just right click and format. then i put the harddrive to the new motherboard, insert xp CD. when the blue screen showed up and asked me to choose enter , repair or quit(ESC)
the computer shutdown itself (which happened also before I formatted the harddrive).
did i format my old harddrive correctly?
how to solve the problem?
thanks!

It is perfectly possible and also practically feasible to change the motherboard (and all the rest-CPU, memory, drives, etc.) without reinstalling Winblows. I have done it myself, and it worked.

The proper way to do it is to go into the Hardware Devices manager and remove ALL of the "System devices" - BIOS, PCI and AGP bussess, memory controllers, everything. Also remove anything else that will be changed, maybe the video card and built-in USB ports? After you have done that, shut down and change the boards. When the system is started next time, Windows will discover all the new devices on the board and install proper drivers etc.

It is also possible to move the Operating system to a completely new hardware, including the disk, which involves doing a full backup, installing Windows on the new drive, then restoring the backup on the new machine, but NOT restoring any hardware drivers. Microsoft Knowledge Base has few articles about these things.

You are right, Leo, any opportunity to clean up the clutter Windows accumulates over time should not be missed. Fresh installs are always the best and fastest way.

Hi. I have recently come home from uni, and bought back my hard drive frm a computer i have up there. When i put it in my new computer it has the message "WIndows did not start successfully.A recent hardware or software change..." came up. Well I have read around and people say this is somtiems expected. Well when i take my hard drive back 2 uni, will it work as usual up there?

I have changed my motherboard on my pc which I built about 2 years ago. I also wanted to reformat my hardrive. I only have one HDD, it's a 120 gb. I went through all the steps taken in doing so..I booted from cd-rom first, using the same windows XP CD I used to originally install XP and selected the NTFS file system. (There was also the option of doing this with the work "quick" next to it, but I wasn't sure what this was used for so I selected the NTFS without quick) However, after the hardrive was reformated 100% the next screen said it failed and it might be due to a damaged hardrive. However my hard drive was not damaged before I changed the mother board. I am almost positive I didn't cause any damage through static electricity or any other means. Can you please help me and tell me if it's possible I made an error somewhere? Thank you, MIke.

I have a problem along the lines of what is being discussed here. My sister's motherboard fried so I replaced it. The post goes fine, memory seems ok, drives are detected, but now I get the "error loading operating system" and that's as far as it goes. Her hard drive was working fine and she has a lot of pictures and things she would be pissed about losing. From what I read here if I use the XP cd to REPAIR the installation windows should update the new motherboard drivers and be functional again. Is this too good to be true??
Mahalo

how in the hell will i put the new pinless PCI Xpress motherboard in my PC by Myself? Please let me know

I replaced my processer and my MOBO , however I did not realize that any such hardware changes will cause this problem to my windows untill I did the change, so a repair did not work, after copying the files setup needed it will reboot the computer, and then it wont actually load into the windows setup (offcourse without pressing the anykey to boot from cd) it will load the windows which will obviously fail.

Any suggestions?

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