absolutely essential to re-install Windows after mobo swap?

[spiffy]

Hi everyone,

I had a mini PC which was rebooting itself whenever the 3.0 Prescott CPU usage reached 100%; out of frustration I took it to my local mom and pop computer store and swapped out the motherboard and put everything into a tower case. Because I didn't want the store to snoop around in my hard drives, I didn't leave them any HDs and told them I was going to hook them up myself. The store advised me that I would still need to "repair" my OS (in this case, Win2K) after I re-connect the drives.

I made the mistake of not making an emergency boot floppy (heck, I don't even have a floppy drive in this PC). But worrying that I might ended up having to reformat the boot drive, I just hooked everything back and see what would happen... And the computer booted back into Win2K just fine; even though I couldn't seem to delete a no-longer-there wifi card entry in my Device Manager; aside from that and the occasional PC turning itself off when my big dog rocked case by brushing against the tower (earthquake detection?) everything else seemed fine as well.

I guess my question is, should I still try to go through the process of "repairing" Win2K? I understand there's a fundamental hardware change (mobo) so there may be some registry conflicts (which I don't notice); everything else stays the same though. Am I risking instability in the OS down the road if I don't do anything? I don't have the means to back up my boot drive at the moment; that's why I don't want to risk losing my data by repairing Windows.

Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Spiffy

[Abbadon]

You could boot your machine using one of the linux LiveCDs, if you have a CD burner, you will be able to backup some important files.

After that, yes, it would be good idea to do a clean Windows installation.

Buena suerte.

[RabidDog]

It s booting ok now .. so back up your files now, and also do the windos xfr thing then Nuke your win installation and re-install. You will gain not only stability (and righteousness) but also a nice lttle speed increase. "Hair of the dog" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_of_the_dog dont work for computers, especially disk drives and burners

[ofbarea]

It depends on the chipset that your old a new mobo have. If they are same, I think you will be OK.

But with the symptoms you were describing I think rebuilding your machine will be a safer bet.

[jtoolman2000]

Why can't you back up your important files to CD or DVD? Does you laptop not have a burner? Do you have a way to connect to an external drive? Perhaps a friend can loan you one for the temporary storage of your files. Then do a complete clean install. Most OS boot disks will allow you to also format you drive prior to OS installation.

[Bjs]

Under win2k you dont need to go that far ... this take's around 10mins to 30mins , depend's on how much has to be done .

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Boot into safe mode under admin .

Go to device manager .

Uninstall all hd , cd , floppy device drivers , and reboot .
(pc should detect and reinstall correct drivers)

Shutdown pc after it has redetected the device's and re enter safe mode .
Repeat step and remove modem , network , vga , sound ... reboot .
(hit esc if pc redetects them , and install updated device driver packages , and reboot ... pc will install them)

Shutdown pc , re-enter sfae mode , and uninstall all other device's , except mouse ... and restart .
(you may need to repeat to above procedure if updated drivers are available)

Once more , in safe mode after shutdown ... now uninstall all usb and motherboard devices , and reboot .
(again , you may need to repeat the updated device driver procedure as pre mentioned)

Should pc require device drivers ... direct it to the C:\WINNT /system32 folder .

If not found ... then it is presumed you have the driver packages on disk .

If unpacked on cd , insert cd , and dirrect it to correct location for correct drivers .

Some may be in installation packages ... in this case , when asked about device driver's for specific device's , hit esc key to stop it , then install the driver package , and reboot the pc ... pc will pick it up from there .

That should complete and fix any issue's ... one last reboot should set things .

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Winxp is the only os that requires a complete reinstall by nature , due to the way the registration key reflects hardware specific's , and any chage may trigger a request to re-register the os on the system .