what would happen if...

[shiato storm]

...I swapped out my current motherboard for a new one, would I have to reinstall windows and all that malarky? or could I boot in safe mode, scrub the 'old' mb drivers and then install new ones? is it that easy?
just a thought thats all.

[[GSV]Trig]

Might work might not, usually best to make all your board device drivers the windows default ones or install the drivers for your new board before u actually take the board out.

[vinnyT]

This link (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/grou...4/m/1400925745) is to another forum, the topic that the link goes to is "How do I swap out a board and not have to reinstall Windows?".

Hope this helps.

Edit: Just re-looked at the link, and it's from 2001 (old bookmark), but may still be of use.

[staffsMike]

You could just change the motherboard..stick the windows disk in and do a repair..that way you cant have any problems.

But if you dont want to do that deffinatly make sure you delete the drivers for the motherboard before changing it..makes things easier.

[DougMcDonald]

There are a couple of prerequisites I would have thought, most of which probably don't apply, but some will scupper (been looking for a chance to use that word!) you if they do apply.

#1 - If you're OS is on a raid array and by switching your mobo you don't have active raid drivers installed you will have trouble mounting the drive.
#2 - Presumably your not switching from IDE to SATA drives or anyying like that, same kind of issues as above, any change in drivers which affects the drive you will need to mount to boot windows is a potential risk.

I would have though a sensible idea would be to remove all your hardware like network/sound cards if applicable, any portable hard drives, flash drives, wireless cards and the associated drivers.
Just leave yourself with mobo, ram, gfx and hdd's.
Remove your current gfx drivers, and is possible anything like via 4 in 1 mobo drivers.
Boot with new mobo into bios and ensure you currently connected hardware is detected. Gfx and HDD's.

If you can get that far, simply install mobo drivers, and gfx drivers. then turn off and re-install all your extra bits of hardware, this will just mimic a first time install and should be a case of re-install drivers again.

Just some ideas.

Mikes 'repair' option may be easier

[Blitzen]

Its VERY unwise to swap out mobos and not reinstall windows.
There are many drivers that will be missed (regardless of installing them again) and it WILL lead to system instability.

[TiG]

Its VERY unwise to swap out mobos and not reinstall windows.
There are many drivers that will be missed (regardless of installing them again) and it WILL lead to system instability.

Just to ditto this, don't do it, its the height of lazyness and will only end to problems down the line.

TiG

[Mad-Max]

I would advise you to reinstall windows if you are swapping motherboards

[Pob255]

Yes the problem normally come with widows not deleteing drivers when you uninstall them but keeping them just incase.
Then when you try to install the new hardware it keeps useing the old drivers and just gets its self into knots.

[aidanjt]

Not only that, but when you install some drivers the definition files will only install some parts of the drivers required for certain devices if detected by the system, this can lead to all kinds of nastiness, especially with disk controller drivers that hosts the system hard drive (evident by the recent SATA->AHCI changes).

[Pob255]

Oh yes, that's another problem that can hit before you get as far as windows.
I had a whole heap of trouble a while back, my system at that time had 2 IDE and 1 SUSI hard drives, when I changed over motherboard the differnce in disk controller caused my drives to apear in a differnt sequance and totally buggered everything up.