Hardware Upgrade with XP

[Robert Olson]

I upgraded my motherboard, CPU and memory and now xp will not load. When I put the HD back on the old mb it works. Is there a trick to get xp to work when you upgrade hardware with xp?????. I did a fresh install on the new equipment but I want to use my old install.

[AbecX]

You have to reinstall 9/10

[chris]

I have done it before with w2k, but not with XP, it should work though, but its potentially dangerous and may not work.

And I think it depends on what version of XP you have. If its a non-corporate copy, I am not sure its possible due to all that crap about checking for hardware changes and making you re-register.

What I usually do it go into the device manager and remove every last device by hand. There is a certain order you need to do it as well, Do the system devices and the hdd controller last. Then reboot. XP will find all the new hardware devices and install them.

Again, I have not done this on XP, just W2K,. Do the above at your own risk. Definitely make an image of that drive before trying it if you want to make sure not to lose anything.

-CHris

[Kenny_Stang]

In Windows XP Professional there's a tool called the System Preperation tool ( Sysprep ) that can be used to remove all the hardware profiles off of the computer so that you can create a master image if you are deploying several computers. If you hook up your hard drive to you old motherboard and run sysprep on it, you should be able to plug it into your new motherboard and it will guide you through a "mini-setup" where PNP redetects your hardware and sets up your computer again, your data and applications will still be there, but you'll have to re-enter your Product Key, regional settings, network settings, etc. The sysprep tool can be found on your CD under \Support\Tools\Deploy.cab extract those to a folder on your hard drive and run sysprep from that folder.

[Robert Olson]

Thanks for the tips.

[chris]

yea thanks kenny. Thats really good to know.

[Kenny_Stang]

Originally posted by chris
yea thanks kenny. Thats really good to know.

Yeah i thought it was pretty cool myself. I just finished MCSE training on Windows XP professional, so I'm full of useful knowledge. :D