I'm about to replace my motherboard, memory, video card etc, but not my hard
drive on a Vista PC. Ideally I'd like to just rebuild the machine and plug
in the old drive and click repair (aka Win XP) but is this possible in
Vista?
I've got a number of VPCs set up on the drive and I'd really like to avoid
the pain of downloading and a reinstalling them all again.
"John" <John74211@community.nospam> wrote in message
news:%23STl4RTGIHA.4296@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I'm about to replace my motherboard, memory, video card etc, but not my
> hard drive on a Vista PC. Ideally I'd like to just rebuild the machine
> and plug in the old drive and click repair (aka Win XP) but is this
> possible in Vista?
>
> I've got a number of VPCs set up on the drive and I'd really like to avoid
> the pain of downloading and a reinstalling them all again.
Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
motherboard. If you're having to repair then it means you have left Windows
set to boot using incompatible storage controller drivers.
In future, before you swap out the motherboard, go into Device Manage -> IDE
/ ATAPI Controllers, and double click the controller in there and go to
update driver -> do not search -> manually select driver from a list, and
change to "Standard whatever". You do not need/want to do anything with the
child-devices ("Primary Channel", "Secondary Channel") - leave these alone,
it's the parent device - the controller, that needs it's driver reverting to
a more generic one.
So you are changing it from VIA 8237x Ultra ATA, or SiS Integrated IDE, or
Intel 8201 whatever, to "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE", or "Standard Hard
Disk Controller" or whatever.
This gives you a pretty good chance that it'll boot up just fine with the
new motherboard, although there are some exceptions. Sometimes you need to
load the drivers up as RAID drivers which is a bit more involved.
Procedure should probably be the same for Vista, unless they've altered
things so that it's not necessary any more (i.e. falling back to a generic
driver when the configured driver fails).
John wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm about to replace my motherboard, memory, video card etc, but not my hard
> drive on a Vista PC. Ideally I'd like to just rebuild the machine and plug
> in the old drive and click repair (aka Win XP) but is this possible in
> Vista?
>
> I've got a number of VPCs set up on the drive and I'd really like to avoid
> the pain of downloading and a reinstalling them all again.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>
Sadly, Vista lacks the repair (in-place upgrade) capabilities of WinXP.
You can try, but you may end up performing a clean installation, anyway.
>
> Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
> motherboard.
Sorry, but things have changed a lot since Win9X and WinNT. Both Win2K
and WinXP almoist always require at least a repair installation upon the
change of the motherboard.
"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:eGQ8ynXGIHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Carl Farrington wrote:
>>
>
>>
>> Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
>> motherboard.
>
> Sorry, but things have changed a lot since Win9X and WinNT. Both Win2K
> and WinXP almoist always require at least a repair installation upon the
> change of the motherboard.
The process I was referring to was for Windows XP. I know what I am doing
and have done it hundreds of times. Doesn't the message
"INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" suggest anything to you?
Carl Farrington wrote:
>
> "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
> news:eGQ8ynXGIHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> Carl Farrington wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>> Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
>>> motherboard.
>>
>> Sorry, but things have changed a lot since Win9X and WinNT. Both
>> Win2K and WinXP almoist always require at least a repair installation
>> upon the change of the motherboard.
>
> The process I was referring to was for Windows XP. I know what I am
> doing and have done it hundreds of times. Doesn't the message
> "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" suggest anything to you?
Sure, but the storage device controllers are just a small portion of a
modern motherboard's components. Your technique may well allow WinXP to
boot on the new motherboard, but it won't result in a stable
installation. Many more drivers need to be replaced, hence the
preference for a repair installation by experienced technicians.
"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:%23OIMlqZGIHA.4684@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Carl Farrington wrote:
>>
>> "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
>> news:eGQ8ynXGIHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>> Carl Farrington wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
>>>> motherboard.
>>>
>>> Sorry, but things have changed a lot since Win9X and WinNT. Both Win2K
>>> and WinXP almoist always require at least a repair installation upon the
>>> change of the motherboard.
>>
>> The process I was referring to was for Windows XP. I know what I am doing
>> and have done it hundreds of times. Doesn't the message
>> "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" suggest anything to you?
>
>
> Sure, but the storage device controllers are just a small portion of a
> modern motherboard's components. Your technique may well allow WinXP to
> boot on the new motherboard, but it won't result in a stable installation.
> Many more drivers need to be replaced, hence the preference for a repair
> installation by experienced technicians.
It results in a perfectly fine installation almost every time, as long as
the architectures aren't light years apart. It doens't fix mismatched HALs,
e.g. if moving from a non-ACPI machine, you'll still have no ACPI after
swapping to a newer board, but this is rarely a problem anyway. A more
common problem is motherboards failing due to bad capacitors, and
same-brand-chipset motherboards not being available.
The only thing to be aware of is if moving from an IDE or (IDE-emulated
SATA) system to an AHCI system you would want to change to the manufacturers
AHCI driver rather than to Microsoft's Standard PCI IDE driver.
I'm afraid the preference is down to ignorance, not experience.
BS! It works 50% of the time on XP.
But, it also causes an unstable OS, as the orginal hardware Drivers are
still installed.
Listen to other people's experience ****head!
"Carl Farrington" wrote:
>
> "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
> news:%23OIMlqZGIHA.4684@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> > Carl Farrington wrote:
> >>
> >> "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
> >> news:eGQ8ynXGIHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> >>> Carl Farrington wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Most of the time it is unnecessary to do a repair after swapping
> >>>> motherboard.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry, but things have changed a lot since Win9X and WinNT. Both Win2K
> >>> and WinXP almoist always require at least a repair installation upon the
> >>> change of the motherboard.
> >>
> >> The process I was referring to was for Windows XP. I know what I am doing
> >> and have done it hundreds of times. Doesn't the message
> >> "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" suggest anything to you?
> >
> >
> > Sure, but the storage device controllers are just a small portion of a
> > modern motherboard's components. Your technique may well allow WinXP to
> > boot on the new motherboard, but it won't result in a stable installation.
> > Many more drivers need to be replaced, hence the preference for a repair
> > installation by experienced technicians.
>
> It results in a perfectly fine installation almost every time, as long as
> the architectures aren't light years apart. It doens't fix mismatched HALs,
> e.g. if moving from a non-ACPI machine, you'll still have no ACPI after
> swapping to a newer board, but this is rarely a problem anyway. A more
> common problem is motherboards failing due to bad capacitors, and
> same-brand-chipset motherboards not being available.
>
> The only thing to be aware of is if moving from an IDE or (IDE-emulated
> SATA) system to an AHCI system you would want to change to the manufacturers
> AHCI driver rather than to Microsoft's Standard PCI IDE driver.
>
> I'm afraid the preference is down to ignorance, not experience.
>
>
Carl Farrington wrote:
>
>
>> Sure, but the storage device controllers are just a small portion of a
>> modern motherboard's components. Your technique may well allow WinXP
>> to boot on the new motherboard, but it won't result in a stable
>> installation. Many more drivers need to be replaced, hence the
>> preference for a repair installation by experienced technicians.
>
> It results in a perfectly fine ....
This is a new usage of "perfectly fine" with which I am not familiar.
What is your criteria? One failure in 3 equals "close enough?"
>... installation almost ....
I don't get paid for "almost." I have to stand behind my work; "good
enough" won't do.
> ... every time, as long
> as the architectures aren't light years apart. It doens't fix mismatched
> HALs, e.g. if moving from a non-ACPI machine, you'll still have no ACPI
> after swapping to a newer board, but this is rarely a problem anyway.
And a new usage of the word "rarely!"
> A
> more common problem is motherboards failing due to bad capacitors, and
> same-brand-chipset motherboards not being available.
>
Your point?
> The only thing to be aware of is if moving from an IDE or (IDE-emulated
> SATA) system to an AHCI system you would want to change to the
> manufacturers AHCI driver rather than to Microsoft's Standard PCI IDE
> driver.
>
All of which supports my position, rather than your own.
> I'm afraid the preference is down to ignorance, not experience.
"Mick Murphy" <MickMurphy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A23952CA-D58A-4208-9B8D-61117390ADA5@microsoft.com...
> BS! It works 50% of the time on XP.
> But, it also causes an unstable OS, as the orginal hardware Drivers are
> still installed.
> Listen to other people's experience ****head!
Sorry, you're wrong!
I think you'll find many large OEMs pre-install drivers for all kinds of
different hardware on the machines that they supply. They obviously use a
very generic image.
Replacing motherboard and keeping hard drive 
Linear Mode
