New motherboard - would xp need to be reinstalled

T

taylormsj

New Member
If i got a new motherboard in the future would i have to re install windows on the hard drive?
I'm asking this because windows had to be installed again on my hard drive when i took it out of a very old computer that it was installed on.
 
Unless it's an exact precise identical match with the old motherboard? Yes, you'll need to reinstall Windows.
Tom
 
A board is a major hardware swap out there. You will probably be upgrading more then the board at that time where a repair install would be useless. But you only recently installed Windows on the current drive you wouldn't need to reformat the drive just install a fresh copy of Windows. XP hardware snapshot process along with no old drivers causing problems with a fresh registry never hurts.
 
OvenMaster said:
Unless it's an exact precise identical match with the old motherboard? Yes, you'll need to reinstall Windows.
Tom
Click to expand...

Not true, as long as they are very similar, it will work. It worked fine when I went from an Abit to Epox board(both Nforce4's, but the Epox was a bit better)
 
If you locate and remove the drivers and software for the first board(knowing which ones that is) a repair install if then needed would work with the same cpu, memory, expansion cards(video, sound), and of course the same drive. The differences in chipsets, onboard controllers, and if using onboard video/sound would be a problem more then swapping the board itself. While a major item it's still one single hardware change. The one thing that lack while the current copy of Windows will still run is a fresh detection of a new board substituted for the first.
 
The_Other_One said:
Not true, as long as they are very similar, it will work. It worked fine when I went from an Abit to Epox board(both Nforce4's, but the Epox was a bit better)
Click to expand...

I was always under the impression that a different motherboard would make Windows think it was a new and different installation, making a fresh install necessary. Okay, so I'm wrong. Again. Par for the course, I guess, lately. :(
 
Generally by the time I swap boards here the drive already is overdue for a wipe anyways for a clean install. So I never worry too much about reinstalling Windows as long as any important files are already backed up somewhere else. It does kind of help when you have a second partition or drive or dvd burner for data disks.
 
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