Format HDD?

Kornowski

Kornowski

VIP Member
Hi,

I'm getting a new Motherboard and I was wondering if it is nessacery to format my hard drive and put windows back on it?

Also, as I've never done this before, how easy is it?

Thanks, Danny
 
When you get a new motherboard you most likely will have to reinstall Windows. If you do, you might as well format first.

It's very simple, just insert the Windows XP CD, reboot, and then choose to reformat and then copy the files.
 
You might not need to reinstall windows, but at the least you will need to repair it. I would stick with totally reformating the computer though.

Remember to back up any important files before you format your computer
 
Do I reformat before I put the new mother board in (on my old one)?

Or when I have the new one in?

I haven't done this before and I know nothing about it, lol
: ¬S
 
It doesn't matter which case the drive when you use the XP installer to delete the current partition. When you have the new build together with the drive you can choose to delete it then if you haven't already done so. It only takes a few minutes to boot up with the XP installation disk and choose the install Windows now option.

That will bring you into the next screen where it will show the partitions and drives detected. You simply highlight the C as it should be seen there and press the L key for the delete option. From there another screen opens where you are asked to press the D key to delete followed by a prompt to confirm that by pressing Y for yes. The partition is then deleted in seconds.

To install afterwards the process is all onscreen where you simply go from the press R for recovery console or press enter to install Windows now screen where you just were. You then press enter again to look for the total drive space and highlight the C but choose the option to install at that time. You can choose the default detection of the entire drive or reduce the size of the primary in case you plan to create a second partition for storage or dual booting with another operating system. A single primary partition for the less experienced is the fastest and easiest there.
 
Awesome, thanks for the helps guys!

One last question, Does it increase performace if you have the operating system on its own HDD? Thanks.
 
When dual OSing here I found it better to have each version of Windows on separate drives while Linux is quite a bit different in some ways since you can have a shared swap partition for running more then one distro on the same drive. Splitting a drive in two to create a storage partition at the end of a single drive will sometimes see a loss there.
 
I won't be having more than one OS, I'm only going to have XP home.
It's just that I've heard that having the OS on it's own, seperate HDD is often better becasue it can access the system files quicker?
 
Generally it is faster to Windows along with the installed softwares all on one single primary partition. If you are not dual OSing a second partition or second is then used for storing files to keep the host drive organized as well as for backing up files you do keep there. At some time if you upgrade to a newer version of Windows or are forced to clean a drive due to some type of virus or spyware your files are still safe on the second partition or drive.
 
The one thing I plan to do besides running a second ide drive here is to add on a sata array at some point to increase storage space. I often find myself dual OSing at times where that would have some benefits.
 
In my opinion, if he’s only changing his mother board, first uninstall all motherboard / chipset drivers and let him do the swap and see if windows accepts the change without needing to be re-activated. Because it’s a combination of hardware components, not just one that windows use to generate its unique number sequence. Now, knowing windows and their stringent licensing scheme it might just ask require re-activation, in that case you’ll have to do it.

Now all you have to do is install your new drivers that came with your motherboard and your're set. Formatting is good, but is isn’t always necessary.
 
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Often when swapping boards of the same make and socket type you may see that work out with even a repair install if needed. That would work netter on a recent installation. But once you start changing makes and types like going from Intel to AMD or vice versa it gets more involved. With the previous versions of Windows like 9X-ME you would install the drivers once the new board was in.

Microsoft allowed room with XP knowing that there would be upgrades after a period of time. But with a newer socket type and even swapping from one brand cpu to the other there's more then the board alone needing a fresh detection. A board and video card are far apart with a board having more then a cpu along with it to condsider there. It really depends on how different one board is to the other. Different memory and other controllers also have to be detected.

With a swap of models by the same make where you use the same memory and cpu you most likely get by with a simple repair install depending on how new the copy of Windows is. There Windows has a fresh install of the essentials along with a fresh detection of a new board. But if you were running the old for a long period of time you want to have a clean install of everything to detect the hardware differences between models alone.
 
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