Shifting of SSD to another mobo

Hi guys. I just bought a ASUS CHV mobo and OCZ Vertex 3 SATA3 SSD to upgrade my system. However i had problems with the CHV and had to RMA it. Now i'm left with the SSD, i decided to install windows on it and run with my previous mobo with is the MSI 970A G45. However my concerns were, when i get back my CHV, do i need to completely erase my SSD before installing it with the CHV mobo? Or do i just simply install it and run as usual? I read from somewhere that its best the storage drive is a blank but i do not have any blank drives now. Any solutions?

Yeah you'll have to reload Win 7 each time because each MB will have different drivers. IMO, a fresh install is always best. With an SSD it's no big deal. Plus I have all my data on other drives so after OS install I can simply point documents, pics, video, music to the proper location.

If you don't want to do this you can make an image drive of the CHV MB install, install Win 7 for the MSI MB. When the RMA board is returned, install the image you made for the CHV MB overtop of the MSI MB.

You will not have to reinstall windows just your chipset drivers. However as Cigarsmoker mentioned it is a good idea to do a fresh install which helps alleviate driver/hardware conflicts.

pwnmachine said:

You will not have to reinstall windows just your chipset drivers.

Click to expand...

You might be able to get away with this IF, it'll boot into Windows to allow you to do this.

Cigarsmoker said:

You might be able to get away with this IF, it'll boot into Windows to allow you to do this.

Click to expand...

You would need to boot into safe-mode uninstall previous chipset drivers and install new ones.

pwnmachine said:

You would need to boot into safe-mode uninstall previous chipset drivers and install new ones.

Click to expand...

So what i do is simply after switching on the com i boot into safe-mode, uninstall the previous chipset drivers and install from thumbdrive? If this doesnt work, any other solutions?

Chesterchuennn said:

So what i do is simply after switching on the com i boot into safe-mode, uninstall the previous chipset drivers and install from thumbdrive? If this doesnt work, any other solutions?

Click to expand...

Pull the SSD out, and put it in another system. Delete the drivers that way. Not sure if it would work like uninstalling them would... It was just an idea.

You can do a clean switch from one mobo to the other, as long as BIOS is configured the same on both boards for the sata ports. If you are in ahci on the current board, be sure you are on ahci on the new board.

I've swapped from 890 to 990 to 700 series. You will want to ensure you change out the Chipset drivers, but it should swap just fine. I've never used safe mode to do it, just regular boot then swap out Chipset stuff.

Cojac92 said:

Pull the SSD out, and put it in another system. Delete the drivers that way. Not sure if it would work like uninstalling them would... It was just an idea.

Click to expand...

Ok, i have another storage disk which is a HDD(shown in my signature). Can i just set the SDD as slave then HDD to master then delete the drivers when i booted from the HDD?

You can't delete the drivers the wayhe suggested. The only way to modify the drivers is to uninstall. If you delete the drivers, they will still be registered in the registry, and you will receive errors.

These are sata drives also. There is no slave/master setting - that was IDE.

In most cases when switching from AMD platform to AMD platform you don't even need to swap chipset drivers. All current chipset drivers work between 7x0 to 9x0 series including RAID/AHCI drivers which are universal from SB650 to SB950. Upon first boot windows will detect things like USB controllers etc. and install as needed. After that you just need a clean shutdown/reboot.

The only thing I could imagine you would need to touch a driver for would be any optional 3rd party SATA controller and/or ethernet controller included with a board. Just like swapping video cards between 4x00 series up to 7x00 series, if drivers are recent you don't need to touch them, just reboot twice.

For example, I am currently running a RAID 0 array running Win 7 Pro on two 640GB WD Caviar Black installed with:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE then swapped for AMD FX-8150 and vice-versa several times
ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX)
4GB DDR3
2x HD 5770

that I am temporarily running on

AMD Phenom II X2 565 BE
ASUS M4A89TD Pro/USB3 (890FX)
4GB DDR3
HD 4850

Before this, I also have an install of Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit on the same RAID 0 pair but different partition (no longer my primary, retired and removed from boot selection)...it has seen four boards and five processors, Gigabyte 790X -UD4P, 890GX -UD3H, ASUS 890FX and 990FX, Athlon 64 X2 5600+, Athlon II X2 210e, Phenom II X2 565 BE + X6 1100T, FX-8150.

...that said, the only problems or conflicts you could possibly have are with 3rd party USB3 controllers, 3rd party SATA controllers or Windows Genuine Advantage in which case Windows indeed sees a new motherboard and asks you to re-validate. So no, you don't need to reinstall anything or change anything. Just hook up the drive.

From my experience, moving RAID 0/1 from AMD to AMD will work without reinstall. The same moving from Intel to Intel. Even 2-3 generations back as most controllers are almost the same. In worst case if it won't boot, you run Windows install CD and fix boot option from repair manager or fixboot command for older windows than Win7.
Moving from AMD to Intel or from Intel to AMD won't work.

Ok thanks. Will try once i get back my CHV. anyway talking about running SSD and HDD together, how do i actually ensure that i want to boot from the SSD and the HDD is just a storage drive?

Chesterchuennn said:

Ok thanks. Will try once i get back my CHV. anyway talking about running SSD and HDD together, how do i actually ensure that i want to boot from the SSD and the HDD is just a storage drive?

Click to expand...

Select the SSD first in the boot order?