Motherboard swap in Win2k????/

[rlburg]

I killed my old Epox KP6-BS motherboard, and just purchased a Soyo 6BA+IV board. Has anyone had any luck swapping motherboards with an exisitng Win2k install? I fear I will have to reinstall Windows, but want to prevent it if possible. Thanks for ANY help anyone can provide on this subject.

[MaStAYoDA1]

As far as I know switching motherboards won't post any problems using the old win2k HD.

[Nanotech9]

when windows installs, it sets up specific drivers/configurations for your motherboard. (i.e., PCI bus controllers, DMA controllers, PCI to ISA bridge, etc...)

when you swap a motherboard out, windows is no longer using the right drivers for the new board. some of the items are redetected, but most remain the same and do not funciton properly. After a certain amount of time, Windows will start crashing more and more, and you'll end up not having a chance to save whatever you need to save. Also, it causes MANY MANY MANY problems when installing new hardware. Believe me, I know. I've told hundreds of customers to format/reinstall after hours of trying to solve their problem w/ the new hardware. as soon as they do it, everything works as it should.

FORMAT!
RE-INSTALL!

http://www.gotapex.com/ubb/smile.gif

as the old saying goes, "a stich in time saves nine."

[wga22]

ITs this kind of stuff that brings fear to those considering upgrading or changing computers. Microsoft is killing the PC by making it impossible for users to easily upgrade a motherboard or even buy a new computer and start up where they left off. Registry settings, hardware configurations are all nessicary evils, but MSFT should come up with an easy way to make the personalized part of a computer transferable to either a new system or a reinstall. Just like the My Documents folder brought all of our docs to one place.

Hmmmm, there just has to be a way to swap motherboards and avoid a reinstall. Maybe devices could be uninstalled from the system forceing a redetect upon reboot?

[wga22]

How to change motherboards with non-win2k os's:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q302/7/78.ASP

[Clauzii]

Using Win 98SE, and upgraded the motherboard 3 times, I have never have had the need to reinstall...

[topane]

I just had to replace my mobo in a 98SE box, after 3 reboots everything was as good as new

[wga22]

Win2k was a different story. I went into the control panel and uninstalled as many things system devices as possible. I then shutdown, installed the AMD ECS MB (used to have an Intel BX board). Upon reboot it didnt make it to the white screen from the black. Web sites indicated that at best I would make all the way but the system would perform poorly, so I sucked it up and reinstalled. I hate reinstalling esp when the system is running fine and not changing OS.

[Clauzii]

I actually start to love (!) the ´old´ Microsoft systems
for being more user friendly than the new ones...!!
:cool:

[wga22]

Certainly an avid overclocker/upgrader/gamer? would almost be crazy to go with something like win2k(maybe xp is better?). Remember in the DOS days there was very little required of the hardware for compliance. It didnt matter what hardware you changed, it was up to the hardware manufacturer to make it work. Slowly windows has mvoed away from the dos core, gaining stability and more efficient code(remember expanded and extended memory over 640k?).

It has become more important that the OS recognize and use all hardware appropriately, than haveing a floppy disk that you can put into any ol computer.

Win2k/NT offers better stability, and allows on the fly networking updates. DOS/win9x had 15 years to evolve, and winnt has only had a few years to become as efficient. It probably never will be because hardware is always cheaper than programmers.

Certainly the gamer will see decreased performance on win2k because of its overhead, and NTFS seems consistenly to be slower than fat32. There are many tradeoffs involved. I bet dos 6.22 would be blazing fast on my new system :)

[Clauzii]

How about Linux?
Is it possible to change any hardware without compiling a new kernal?