THE PROBLEM: I am pretty sure i got a virus and it killed my mobo so i installed a new mobo and upgraded from a Sempron 2800 XP to a Sempron 2800 64 OHH-AHH
anyways i figured when i did this that i would have to format and reinstall XP but much to my suprise all I needed to do was reregister(wow)but like i said i am not for sure if it was a virus that did this in the first place but did notice files were missing so that looks like the culprit to me BUT when i do a full scan with nortons antivirus it does not find anything.
Now the computer runs fine until i try to go online with my earthlink provider but if i dont start it up was able to do a update on nortons with no problems. What it does with the earthlink is that it will let me go online loads the homepage then computer tries to restart but does not shut down completly I am assuming somthing has gotten screwed up in the registry from the virus but new mobo is keeping it from effecting it in other operations (least that i have noticed)
THE QUESTION: if i do a system restore from a date that computer was not messed up but now has new hardware what will happen
I do not want to try this and make matters worse

You could try a System Restore but I would advise reinstalling XP.

A Repair Install might be all you need although a Clean Install would be more stable in the long run.

Depending on your XP CD version you will have to add all the updates (SP2 etc.)

The only thing about doing a clean install si that without the SP2 as soon as i get online i get a virus and if Iam correct you told me about when i first had trouble installing XP and also doing a clean install id lose alot of things that id like to keep.
But I did try to do a repair install and it does not work like 2000 or even 98(which I thought was easeir because all you had to do was rerun it)
I know you have the link on how to do a repair with XP and if you could give it to me i would really appreciate it. And as always thanks for your expert help!

A Repair Install in general retains all programs and data:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

A Clean Install is much more stable but does wipe the hard drive/ partition

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

You will also see in those links tips as to SlipStreaming SP2

http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?act...showarticle=49