Hi,
I'm getting a new motherboard as my old one no longer works and have found that new mobo = new start, which usually requires formatting your hard drive, but I have also heard that there is a program or something which can be used so as to avoid this (i.e. allow me to just install windows and get going, I think) as backing up would be quite a feat on my near-full 320Gb HD and less than convenient to have to do this and then do all that reinstalling. Does anyone here know of such a program, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

HD: 320Gb Seagate Barracuda,
Old mobo: Asrock K7VT6
New mobo: Asustek S939 nForce4 SLI X16 ATX

A Repair Install should work and not interfere with your data. Here is a good page on the details:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

I know that our Moderator brain_damage has a method of driver transfers that might even eliminate the need of a Repair Install but as my own hard drive melted down the other night I've lost all my links.

I will ask him to add his advice here.

I found this on the web and I've used it a few times

Before you swap out the current motherboard go to device manager and select the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller and select your current storage controller. Right click, select update driver and select install from a list or specific location. Click don't search I will choose the driver to install and select the standard dual channel IDE controller.

This will prevent the inaccessable boot device blue screen. I have done this multiple times on different platforms with no problems.

Also I found that booting the first time with the new motherboard is best done in the Safe mode where XP will install the drivers it needs and at the same time you can install the new motherboard drivers from its CD.

This saved me doing a repair or a reinstall of XP. My whole system came right up and worked great and very stable.

thanks you two! but there are some problems:

first problem:

Originally Posted by Tyskie

I'm getting a new motherboard as my old one no longer works

second problem I think:

Originally Posted by Tyskie

HD: 320Gb Seagate Barracuda

it's SATAII, don't know if that matters or not as it's not IDE but the major problem is the first one lol

so am I unable to use your method now b_d? or is there another way

thanks

Sounds like you will need to do a Repair Install. Again this should leave your data and settings intact (including programs).

As to the SATA drive you will need the SATA/RAID drivers that will be on your motherboard CD. If you boot this CD first most have a create floppy option to put the drivers onto a floppy. Then during the initial setup of XP press F6 when prompted to load drivers. After you do this then the XP Setup will recognize your SATA drive.

thanks for your help. can close. will try and back my data up before I start this procedure just in case though

Thanks for the thanks and best of luck!

Let us know if we can help further in the future.