Time to upgrade...

I've now gotten all the pieces I need to update my lowly computer. I've been running a PIII 533 Pentium, and it's served it purpose. Presently I have (2) Hard drives; and 80 Gig. Maxtor, and a 20 Gig. Quantum Fireball, with a SoundBlaster LIVE! Platinum 5.1, Pioneer 10X DVD-ROM and GFX5200 TDI-128 graphics card. The OS is XP Professional.

I bought an Asus P4C800 Deluxe a little while ago, and then picked up a Pentium 3.0 Gig (800 FSB version), Corsair 400MHz DDR No-ECC 512MB TWINX LL memory,Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu, and a Thermaltake fan/heatsink duo for my Northbridge.

I had recently upgraded my Windows 98SE to Windows XP Pro, and did a full format/partition of the new 80 Gig drive (I used to use the 20 Gig, until I need ed to upgrade, so I bought the 80 Gig in order to install the XP. That way I wouldn't lose any of the info I had stored on it.) Reformatting my 80 Gig is out of the question. I have been told that upon installation of my new MoBo, that I'll have to reinstall XP. I was also told conflicting stories. First off, I was told that I will have problems if I just install XP over the old XP copy, and then a different technician (from ASUS) had told me I should have any problems if I did install XP without a total reformat. Whhich is the truth?

I've never undertaken something like this before (swapping out an old MoBo/CPU, and putting in a new one). Just by looking at the Asus User's Guide, I can't help but think I may run into trouble. It seems way to easy and cut and dry.

I'd appreciate any and all help and advice you folks can give me, pertaining to this upgrade. Thanks alot.

P.S. I noticed another thing while reading through the User's manual. It states that you can OC the MoBo 10%, 20% and 30% through the BIOS. Would an OC of 20% be considered safe with Air cooling ? (I have an Antec case with 5 80mm fans). Or should I just froget Asus's "automatic" overclock using AI and go the "manual" route?

Ideally, the best solution is to reinstall clean, after slicking the drive / formatting during install.

However, you don't HAVE to, that just gives the best results.

You may not even have to reinstall at all.

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION:

Insert the cd and boot from it. XP will present you with a menu asking if you want to install XP, or if you want to repair an existing installation.

CHOOSE INSTALL.

Then it presents you with the partition menu, and asks you which partition you want to install to, or if you want to delete/create/whatever partitions.

CHOOSE YOUR EXISTING INSTALL PARTITION. (highlight it and hit enter.)

XP will NOW say "Whoa there buddy, there's an XP install here already, want me to repair that?"

Tell it you want to repair.

WHY? The first repair option you're presented with at cd-boot is not a full repair, it just basically recopies a few important files, fixes the boot sector of the partitions, that sort of thing.

The SECOND repair option rips the guts of the XP install, all the low-level stuff that is dependent on your motherboard's hardware. I have repaired many XP/2K installs this way, and if you have a healthy OS before the motherboard swap, odds are good you'll have one after the swap and this repair method.

You have to be careful, though, because if you screw up, you'll end up actually re-installing XP instead of doing the repair. Try to back up all your important stuff, obviously.

I've partitioned my HD, so if I choose the options that you've suggested, it should respect the way that the HD is setup already and just go through the repair process, correct? BTW, thank you for the tips, I really appreciate it.

Sorry it took so long for me to reply, i've been out of town.

Yes, when you tell install what partition to use, it will first check to see if there is an existing OS there - when it finds that it is XP Pro, it will offer to repair it for you.

IF FOR SOME REASON IT DOESN'T...

this is still isn't the end of the world as far as you're concerned. While you'll have to reinstall your 3rd party software, your saved files, etc, should all be intact. However, your mail and favorites and things might not be.

Anyway, I've never seen it NOT ask, and i do this professionally. The repair might not work (I.E., you may not be able to get around having to do a proper install) but a repair using this method won't hose your data.