Question on upgrading computer, saving the hard drive

[ShinseiKen]

Im planning to upgrade my computer soon (mobo, video card, cpu and that kind of stuff) but i decided to keep using the hard drive that i have now

my question is do i have to reinstall windows xp or not? If not then thats great but if i have to then im gonna have to play hide and seek with my windows xp disk -_-

[sswilson]

It really depends on what chipset you are coming from and what is on your new motherboard. Sometimes it will work, other times it will not.

Best practice is to do a completely fresh install. That way you're sure that there aren't any old drivers still kicking about slowing down your system.

One thing for sure... if you upgrade both the cpu and the motherboard you are almost guaranteed to set off a new activation requirement from XP.

[Supergrover]

Originally Posted by sswilson

It really depends on what chipset you are coming from and what is on your new motherboard. Sometimes it will work, other times it will not.

Best practice is to do a completely fresh install. That way you're sure that there aren't any old drivers still kicking about slowing down your system.

One thing for sure... if you upgrade both the cpu and the motherboard you are almost guaranteed to set off a new activation requirement from XP.

Personally I would do a fresh install, but if you want to give it a try download drivercleanerpro to uninstall your old drivers first, but with that amount of changes to your system I would just burn any pertinent info and start fresh.

[Cardboard box with DSL]

It's always best to do a fresh install, that way windows doesn't try to put in any random drivers and mess things up.
If you were going from say a p5b to a p5b deluxe, you would not need to re-install because all you are doing is adding some features, like wifi to what windows would think is the same thing. But changing from a 965 chipset to a 680i will require a full format and reload.

I would personally always do a fresh install, just because everything works nice and fast after one, so your new, faster parts appear to be even better

[enaberif]

new hard drive, slave the other and do fresh install.

[ShinseiKen]

Originally Posted by Cardboard box with DSL

It's always best to do a fresh install, that way windows doesn't try to put in any random drivers and mess things up.
If you were going from say a p5b to a p5b deluxe, you would not need to re-install because all you are doing is adding some features, like wifi to what windows would think is the same thing. But changing from a 965 chipset to a 680i will require a full format and reload.

I would personally always do a fresh install, just because everything works nice and fast after one, so your new, faster parts appear to be even better

Well looks like for sure im gonna have to do fresh install then -_-

now my problem now is finding my windows xp disk that came with my comp

[Mibs]

I just upgraded my system tonight from and old compaq and the only thing I kept was the hard drive. I was able to boot into windows fine ...after a new over the phone activation. Now I don't know what drivers are floating around. I want to do a fresh install but the only cds I have are the recovery discs that I made myself when I first got the old compaq. Am I right in assuming that those recovery discs have all the drivers and everything preinstalled for the old hardware? I also could go to Vista...I have an upgrade copy of Home Premium lying around..but I don't want to do that just yet. Any suggestions?

[BMWDriver]

I swapped mobos between my two computers yesterday. I uninstalled all drivers and utilities related to video, and especially to the mobo and sound drivers. I reactivated one XP on the phone and was able to manage over the Internet for the other.

So far, so good. Then I installed a sound card in my most powerful system, and what an upgrade that is.

I have yet to test gaming.

They are both Via based mobos, however one is ASUS with AMD CPU, and the other is MSI with Intel CPU.