I am going to install a new motherboard into my PC. the board has come with the drivers on a CD. As I will have to do either a repair or clean install of the opperating system. what order do i do these tasks. do i install the driver then try to repair/ reinstall the OS or the other way round.

Changing the mainboard within a PC isn't a nice task (as you've got to pull all the wires out and undo all that hard work you did to put it in, in the 1st place), but none the less a simple one.

Basically you shouldn't have to do anything to the operating system (I'm assuming that you have drivers and applications installed for your current mainboard). All you might have to do is uninstall any applications related to your current board when you put your new one in. As for the drivers, you're best leaving them, as a large driver database on your PC is only a good thing


Hope this helps


Regards
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Meckanix

New motherboard will probably throw Windows XP's activation so you'll need to reactivate but other than that like Meckanix says Windows will just boot once the new mobo is in and take a while asking for new drivers and stuff from the CD.

I didn't think that it would ask for you to re-register XP

You really do learn something everyday, but then again I awalys by a high performance mainboard and upgrade the CPU and RAM later.


Regards
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Meckanix

XP requires re-activation when I think four components are changed. If your network card and video card are onboard to your mobo then that might be enough to tip it over the edge. But as you say it may well not do. I know when I changed my mobo and GFX card it was enough. Either way its not really a big hassle

Are you sure. I have read on the net that as the new board has a different chipset i would at least have to do a repair installation of the OS if I was lucky. and at worst i would have to reinstall it from scratch

None of us can say for certain. As always with upgrades just make sure all your critical data is backed up. Then stick the new motherboard in and turn it on and see. I hope you get lucky.