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Upgrading Motherboard Without Reinstalling Windows

Normally when you upgrade a motherboard, the general wisdom is that you should at the same time reinstall your OS. For me this is a pain, since it usually takes a couple weeks before everything is back to how it was before I started the upgrade. So when I upgraded my older Athlon 64 set up, to a new Intel Core 2 Duo, I really wanted to avoid the necessity of reinstalling Windows. I did manage to do it, but there are some caveats to be aware of:

• Before you start, back up all of your data, just in case this doesn’t work for your situation.
• Especially if you use an onboard network adapter to connect to the internet, make sure you have a copy of the drivers for the new hardware. This usually comes on a CD with new hardware.
• Before you start the upgrade, remove old motherboard and display drivers. Since the display drivers are usually dependent to some extent directly on the motherboard, this saves from possible problems.
• Before you start windows back up for the first time, make sure your system clock is set correctly. If not, you wont be able to get into the OS to install the new drivers without reactivating. With the correct clock, it will give you 3 days to reactivate windows.
• Since you wont have working USB hubs, you may need a PS2 mouse/keyboard or a converter.
• If you do try to upgrade without the old drivers, you may not be able to fully load windows, or at least not with normal boot. Safe mode or VGA mode may work.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Software, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.