Install new drivers for motherboard but keep the hard disks?

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:24 pm

My Asus M2N32 motherboard died after 2 years.

I'm still looking for a replacement, but I have 1 question:

In order to make the new motherboard work, the drivers need to be installed on my current hard disk.
From past experience:
* Installing new drivers on an old motherboard (to prepare an upgrade) doesn't work (this is not the problem here, the old mobo died, but I tried to do this on a former PC).
* Mounting a new mobo with disks that contain chipset drivers for another mobo doesn't work (windows wouldn't load last time I tried this).

=> Can I, by using a refresh/repair/reinstall of the OS, install the new chipset drivers for a new mobo without losing data on my disks? (Windows XP).

Installing the OS and countless programs would be a last resort for me, is there any way I can exchange a mobo without losing a number of hours?

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:39 pm

I guess the only option is to install the OS clean, install all the programs, games and apps again

Trav1s · Post by **Trav1s** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:44 pm

If you could get it to boot into safe mode, uninstall the old drivers, reboot and then install the new drivers it might work. I have not had luck with it but what do you have to loose?

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:49 am

Luck of the draw I think.

I actually just upgraded my wife's old Athlon XP system to an Athlon 64 (socket 939) successfully with the same Windows install...although I hedged my bets a bit.

Made a backup to external drive with Acronis TI Personal, restored the backup to new machine with a different hard drive...let it do the driver/hardware dance and all was fine. Of course, the original was still working and untouched at this time.

The biggest problem with a Windows repair is that it might fix the driver issue, but also roll back all the updates, patches etc... And then go through installing those again.

So if you have extra drives around, maybe you could image the old one to a new drive and try installing that onto new hardware.

Metaluna · Post by **Metaluna** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 8:14 am

To echo psiu's comment, sometimes it works, sometimes not. IMHO, the closer your new motherboard/CPU/video/audio/lan/etc. are to the old ones the greater your chances will be.

Also, on the new motherboard, before you first boot it you probably want to go into the BIOS and disable as many peripherals as possible, and put your hard drive controllers into the most basic, compatible legacy IDE mode possible. I just did an e8500/P45 -> Core i7/X58 upgrade this way, but the motherboards were relatively similar (both Gigabyte boards with the same southbridge, audio, and LAN, plus I kept the same video card).

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:53 am

Trav1s wrote:If you could get it to boot into safe mode, uninstall the old drivers, reboot and then install the new drivers it might work. I have not had luck with it but what do you have to loose?

the way to do that is with the old motherboard, right before you replace it... uninstall all of the drivers, prior to swapping the hardware out.

ultimately the only reliable way to swap motherboards is to use windows repair, even if you have to re-install the updates and maybe re-license it with microsoft.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:41 pm

to echo Metaluna echoing me (echo echo echooo?), I just upgraded the HTPC over the weekend and kept the same Windows install and HD.

Went from a DFI Via-based socket-754 board to an Asus Via-based socket-AM2 board (same/similar chipsets, still Athlon-based memory controller, etc) and it also changed video cards (from old Radeon 9700 pro to Radeon 4350.

After some tinkering, driver dancing, finger crossing, voodoo sacrifices, and reactivation, all is well. Typing on it right now even

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:47 pm

Thanks for all the replies!

Well, I hope I'll be as lucky as psiu, although a completely new install seems to be unavoidable if all else fails (not that I'm not going to try...).

The dead motherboard had an NVidia nForce 590 chipset, the new one will have an AMD 790X chipset. In other words, both motherboards are completely different from one another.
Darn... in the IDE days you could just plonk in any motherboard you wanted and it worked.

Although I've installed Windows a few times, it's not my strong point...
If I do try to install new drivers on the same HDD, how would I go about it? Do I put the new drivers on an USB stick, and perform a "repair" of XP, as suggested below?

danimal wrote:ultimately the only reliable way to swap motherboards is to use windows repair, even if you have to re-install the updates and maybe re-license it with microsoft.

I can use my brother's installation CD's, his version includes SP3 IIRC (my version is the original one, it's an upgrade which doesn't even include SP2), obviously I will use my own license key.

Is there a problem if the old drivers are still there? I will use "Driver Sweeper" to get rid of them, but in order to do that, I first need Windows to load.

Just to be on the safe side, I will first mirror the OS disk to a new one.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:29 pm

spookmineer wrote:Well, I hope I'll be as lucky as psiu, although a completely new install seems to be unavoidable if all else fails (not that I'm not going to try...).

The dead motherboard had an NVidia nForce 590 chipset, the new one will have an AMD 790X chipset. In other words, both motherboards are completely different from one another.
Darn... in the IDE days you could just plonk in any motherboard you wanted and it worked.

Good luck. Not sure what the best approach will be--trying to just leave as is and see what happens, or to remove old drivers and then install the new hardware and see what happens.

Although I've installed Windows a few times, it's not my strong point...
If I do try to install new drivers on the same HDD, how would I go about it? Do I put the new drivers on an USB stick, and perform a "repair" of XP, as suggested below?
danimal wrote:ultimately the only reliable way to swap motherboards is to use windows repair, even if you have to re-install the updates and maybe re-license it with microsoft.
I can use my brother's installation CD's, his version includes SP3 IIRC (my version is the original one, it's an upgrade which doesn't even include SP2), obviously I will use my own license key.

What variety was his? They need to match (OEM, Retail, Upgrade, etc)

Is there a problem if the old drivers are still there? I will use "Driver Sweeper" to get rid of them, but in order to do that, I first need Windows to load.

Personally, I don't think so...they just won't be used anymore. The only problem initially you run into is a big enough difference to where something blue screens. Booting into safe mode *could* help with this.

Just to be on the safe side, I will first mirror the OS disk to a new one.

Yep. And then you can keep trying over and over and over

And to be a little more clear, my wife's computer was running XP. The HTPC was running Vista. Neither needed a repair install. Though both were upgrades keeping the chipset manufacturer the same.

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:34 pm

spookmineer wrote:
danimal wrote:ultimately the only reliable way to swap motherboards is to use windows repair, even if you have to re-install the updates and maybe re-license it with microsoft.
I can use my brother's installation CD's, his version includes SP3 IIRC (my version is the original one, it's an upgrade which doesn't even include SP2), obviously I will use my own license key.

Is there a problem if the old drivers are still there? I will use "Driver Sweeper" to get rid of them, but in order to do that, I first need Windows to load.

Just to be on the safe side, I will first mirror the OS disk to a new one.

if the old mb is dead, you really don't have any choice, you'll have to boot off of the windows dvd, and tell it to do a repair install... do not boot off of the hard drive if you can help it.

i would try your brothers disc first, you can always plug your own winxp upgrade disc in there if you have to.

you should be able to power up the new mb, and immediately go into setup(usually it's the delete key), to verify that the mb sees the dvd drive, and has it listed as the first boot option.

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:58 pm

A reinstall is better, but if you want to try, here's a link:

http://motherboard.windowsreinstall.com/

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:13 pm

I recently replaced an old dual pentium III board with a core 2 duo motherboard, and used the windows xp disk to do a repair. It's working fine now, although I did wind up reinstalling a whole bunch of patches and stuff. The trickiest part was getting the ethernet port working, but once that started working and I could download stuff, it went a lot more smoothly. It did force me to re-verify it during the repair, which was a pain since the ethernet port was down, so I had to do it by phone. But otherwise it was a pretty straightforward process.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:38 pm

danimal wrote:
spookmineer wrote:
danimal wrote:ultimately the only reliable way to swap motherboards is to use windows repair, even if you have to re-install the updates and maybe re-license it with microsoft.
I can use my brother's installation CD's, his version includes SP3 IIRC (my version is the original one, it's an upgrade which doesn't even include SP2), obviously I will use my own license key.

Is there a problem if the old drivers are still there? I will use "Driver Sweeper" to get rid of them, but in order to do that, I first need Windows to load.

Just to be on the safe side, I will first mirror the OS disk to a new one.
if the old mb is dead, you really don't have any choice, you'll have to boot off of the windows dvd, and tell it to do a repair install... do not boot off of the hard drive if you can help it.

i would try your brothers disc first, you can always plug your own winxp upgrade disc in there if you have to.

you should be able to power up the new mb, and immediately go into setup(usually it's the delete key), to verify that the mb sees the dvd drive, and has it listed as the first boot option.

If he can make a copy first...it doesn't hurt to try booting and see what happens. Like I said, both of the 2 upgrades I just did within the last month or two went pretty much without a hiccup. Obviously not guaranteed but worth a shot.

Install new drivers for motherboard but keep the hard disks?

Install new drivers for motherboard but keep the hard disks?

windows repair works