Changing system board without reinstalling Win98SE 3

[euston]

I intend building a new much faster PC into which I wish to place my existing HDD (after cloning to CD-R with Ghost). I don't want to spend 10+ hours reinstalling all my apps so wish to continue using my present installation of Win98SE which is very stable. Is there any way of cleaning the old hardware related data out of the registry? I will be disabling disk DMA before installing the HDD in the new system.

 

[mainegeek]

Before you install the hard drive, you might also want to
boot in safe mode and remove all the devices in device
manager. Select NO to any restarts until it is empty.

You should really do a Clean Install with the new system board though.

 

[euston]

Thank you mainegeek. That makes sense. I was wondering if there were any utilities to fo the job but the method is so simple that such a utility is unnecessary.

 

[mainegeek]

This still won't remove registry entries, but it should
at least get the old device drivers out of the way.

 

[euston]

Hi oh mighty mainegeek. I just got a copy of the Win98 SYSPREP utility for which I entertain great hopes.

 

[apex1x]

An easy way to clean out the hardware info out of the registry is to go Start->Run->"regedit", then go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" and delete the entire branch named "ENUM".
The next time you reboot, Windows will go through the process of finding/registering all the hardware again.
Always make sure to backup the registry before you make changes
Good luck.

 

[wolluf]

Whether you remove entries or not, it will still go through the process of reinstalling everything, which may or may not leave you with a working machine.

 

[craigey]

By the way I've done this once, without any registry editing or removing any devices in device manager. The system lasted less then a week, before I had to format/re-install.

I think your system will probably be ok, but it will never be as stable as it currently is unless you do a clean install.

But good luck anyway!

 

[euston]

Thanks for all your thoughts. I never put the Win98 Sysprepall utility to work. I bit the bullet and went for Win2000 instead and am glad I did.

 

[bill200]

I think that you all are doing too much. The key point, although counterintuitive, is to pre-install all the NEW motherboard's drivers while running the OLD motherboard for the last time. Windows will ignore the new stuff because it then doesn't see any corresponding hardware. After you swap the motherboard and reboot, the Windows should ignore the old stuff and use the new. And if it doesn't, you can always boot the new system into safe mode and configure the drivers there.

I've done this 4 times without problems. In fact, I have one system whose hard disk has the leftovers from DOS 6 with DESQview(!)/Win 3.11/Win 95/Win 98/Win 98SE - each time I've upgraded the disk I started with a full disk-to-disk copy to keep the old system.

In other points, (1) make sure the old system is stable before you upgrade (Norton WinDoctor, registry checked, scan disked, etc.); (2) to keep your life simple, don't upgrade any unnecessary cards (graphics, modem, NIC, etc.) or devices (CD-ROM, DVD, ZipDisk, etc.) at the same time you change the motherboard. If (when) something goes wrong, you'll have minimized the range of possible causes.

 

[wolluf]

bill200 - I'd like to know how you do this 'pre-install all the NEW motherboard's drivers while running the OLD motherboard' and still stop windows doing a reinstall the first time you boot with new mobo.