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Transferring hard drive to new motherboard questions, plz help

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drkcyde

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Joined
Jul 8, 2008
Location
Honolulu, Hawaii
I was wondering if I take my current hardrive, and plug it into a new motherboard if I will still have to re-install my os. Or can I just plug it in and turn on my comp, with it automatically making the adjustments to the new system?
 
You probably have to remove old drivers and install new ones.

My board died, replaced it with different one. Works fine, just required new driver and os activation. Though os is vista and it newer hardware.
 
Last edited:
:welcome: to the forums.


I never change boards without re-installing the OS. You are much better off installing everything fresh to avoid problems.
 
If you transitioning from one board to another that comes from the samnufacturer then you should not have to re-format and fresh intsall, like Asus to Asus, Abit to Abit etc....when you go from Asus to Abit etc then you could run into driver conflicts , I would say don't do that more than 2-3 times irrespecitive of the old and new board as you'll get problems down the line
 
Best to reinstall the OS

however I did learn a trick once you can remove all the drivers via control panel and delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum from the registry and it normally works for a fresh start with a new mobo...

Fair warning take information given above-below very lightly...

For Windows 95, 98, and ME, the secret seems to be the part of the Windows Registry labelled HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. In this folder you'll find a sub-directory named Enum, which contains sub-references to the specific hardware components found in your PC, regardless of whether or not they are enabled in each hardware profile, and thus applicable to all users. It covers motherboard devices, BIOS, PCI cards, USB devices, your hard and floppy drives, any SCSI devices, monitor, mouse, and so on.

Delete this Enum folder, then power down your PC. Then install your new motherboard. The safest way to do an 'over the top' motherboard upgrade with any operating system is to start with just the graphics card installed. Then, when you boot up for the first time with the new board in place, a new Enum folder will be created, and all your new motherboard devices should then be detected in sequence and added to it. I can't guarantee that this will always work, but it seems to be a trick that's fairly well-known by Win 98 users
 
......delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum from the registry and it normally works for a fresh start with a new mobo...

Fair warning take information given above-below very lightly...

Great, need to try that tonight, so does that delete all the previous chipset drivers the?
 
If you transitioning from one board to another that comes from the samnufacturer then you should not have to re-format and fresh intsall, like Asus to Asus, Abit to Abit etc....when you go from Asus to Abit etc then you could run into driver conflicts , I would say don't do that more than 2-3 times irrespecitive of the old and new board as you'll get problems down the line

And what if you go from one chipset to another? They are going to use different drivers...
 
Great, need to try that tonight, so does that delete all the previous chipset drivers the?


AFAIK it deletes all device manger drivers...

So yea that would be included. there is also 2 other enum folders

the 2nd is in controlset1 and the 3rd is in controlset2 still in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\

I think you can just delete the currentcontrolset


then again may want to delete them all :D
 
I replaced my MOBO with a new make, new chipset.
I was told @ Fry's I would definitley have to re-install.
I was prepared, but only had to reactive.:) Running XP pro.
 
I installed windows xp on a hard drive in a socket 939 Asus system, move it to a socket 775 Abit system and then to a socket 775 Gigabye system. Each time I only had to install sound, video, network and chipset drivers. No reactivation for me. But sometimes its not that easy. Best way to to go in device manager and switch your PATA or SATA controller driver to windows default or generic before adding the drive to a new mobo - unless they have the same controller.
 
And what if you go from one chipset to another? They are going to use different drivers...

You still need to install new ones but I found leaving the old ones does not creat havoc such as going from a Asus board to a MSI board, the worst is going from Intel to nVidia chipset, they just hate each other by design, if you know what I mean.
 
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