New System/Old Drive Swap-Out!! 1

[Pattons]

I am currently building a P4 system, with a 1.6 GHz Processor, on an Asus P4S333 board with integrated Audio. So far I have the NIC, the VGA, modem, and 256 MB of DDR to start. (The board supports 2G of PC2700). This is the first PC I've ever built, so far it's all going pretty smoothly, but as it gets closer to crunch-time(actually plugging it in), I want to make sure it's all good to go.I have a 12X24X48(I think) CD-RW, your basic 3.5 floppy, and a Maxtor 20 Gig HDD ATA-100 @5400 RPM. I will change the HDD over to a 60 sooner or later, but right now my budget cuts that option off. My question is this: Can I remove all the hardware from the windows sytem, plug the drives into the new system, install the new board drivers and be good? Should I back up the entire drive(I'm not really sure how to do that), and then partition and format it? I'm as far as I'm ready to go with putting it together without some form of experienced feedback. I just need to know how to make sure my old drive works, and I still have all my data. Thanx.

 

[jbrusie]

So if I am understanding you correctly you want to use an old hard drive with all new hardware, new video, mother board and all that...If this is the case, just plug it in and turn the computer on...Windows should detect everything that is needed to run, be sure to have a OS disk handy. There is no need to remove your old drivers or anything. You will also need the drivers for all of your new toys. NIC, modem, etc.

If I am in left field on this let me know.

Hope this helps...

John

 

[Mulga]

jbrusie is not entirely correct... sometimes windows will handle the changeover ok, sometimes not. A lot depends on how similar the old and new boards are, if they use the same or similar chipsets you will probably get away with it, however even when it works it can lead to problems later.
The best solution by far is to format the HDD and restart from scratch, however if you can't do this for some reason remove all hardware in device manager before making the switch, and I mean ALL, boot the new system with no expansion cards or other hardware connected except video, let it detect and install all the system devices, then install the motherboard drivers and then install all other hardware one piece at a time. This procedure usually works, no guarantees.
You should still back up your important data first but there is no point in making an exact image of the whole drive as it will still have all the old drivers. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Mulga]

Further to the above... I had a system recently where the motherboard died, I replaced it eith a board with exactly the same chipset but from a different manufacturer, Epox to Aopen. Yhe system was dual boot 98SE and XP Pro and I tried to get away with doing a straight swap, no deleting of drivers first as the board had died suddenly and I did not have the opportunity. It worked fine in XP but when I booted to 98 I had massive problems, finally managed to get it to boot in safe mode and removed everything that way then reinstalled. It worked but is still a bit flaky All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Pattons]

Hi again folks. well, since I'm writing you obviously figured that I got everything up and working, took a little time, but things are groovy. JBrusie, I wanna say thanx man, but your advise turned out to be wrong. I appreciate anything that I can get from folks in the know though. I ended up backing all my important data onto a direct cd courtesy of Roxio, and deleting my primary partition, formatting, and going with a fresh install.But this thing is pretty hot. I have the cpu overclockin' just a little, and the ram too. so far it's pretty smooth sailing. Oh and Mulga, you ended up having it right, but I had already figured that out by the time I got your message.If I had a little patience, I probably could have saved myself a ton of headache, huh? Thanks a million anyway though for your reply.
This place is the best tech site I've ever seen

 

[jbrusie]

I'm sorry about the info guys and gals...thats just the way I have done things and it has never failed...I guess I learned more here then most. I must be lucky...but unlike the old saying, "I'd rather be lucky then good," not in computers...I would rather be good, but a little luck isn't bad either...I will heed the advice given in the forum!

Thanks

John