Okay so here is the situation, I recently fried my MOBO and now need to replace it. Problem being is that I cannot get an identical MOBO replacement and will have to replace my PCChips board with a Biostar board. Now the big scoop how do I replace the MOBO without loseing ANY data on my HDD? I have been reading and it looks like I can do an XP repair from the disc (hoping that I still have the disc and if I do I still have the damn activation code) and it should work without data loss. Is this correct? Also would it be better for me to install a differant HDD ( I happen to have 2 IDE drives laying around) and then use my SATA drive (the one with all my data) as a slave drive and if I did do this would I then be able to retain all my data and programs on the drive? Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated as I cannot lose the data on the drive (especially the photos, my wife would KILL me!!!), thank you.
Perhaps someone else will have a divergent view, but based on my experience haveing done this close to 100 times, if you didn't buy a motherboard with an identical/compatible Southbridge it will be very difficult (if not impossible) for you to boot from the hard drive and retain programs. If you want a seamless reboot, you need a mobo with an identical Southbridge to the old one. "I have been reading and it looks like I can do an XP repair from the disc (hoping that I still have the disc and if I do I still have the damn activation code) and it should work without data loss. Is this correct?" Yes, provided that you can get the HDD to boot into windows, which is not likely. AFAIK, Windows repair will not modify the IDE driver. That is your challoenge. If you are stuck using the new mobo, buy a new HDD and reinstall everything from scratch, using the old HDD as a secondary drive and then copy the data over. It will probably faster to do that than trying to get the old HDD to boot on the new MOBO. In that case, your applciations cannot be saved, only the data. In my experience the only reliable way to do a seamless replacement is: 1)Change the IDE controller back to Generic IDE BEFORE you swap motherboards (not an option in the broken mobo scenario) 2)Make sure that the new mobo has the same Southbridge that the old one had, that's where the IDE functionality is. 3)Be incredibly lucky that the old mobo didn't have a proprietary IDE driver and that Windows won't BSOD when you install the old HDD into the new mobo. (I've only seen this happen with older nForce chipsets.
I've changed motherboards before and was able to get the old hard drive to bootup the new motherboard. But it is a good idea to use the same video card, that is something that will prevent windows from booting up, especially if it doesn't have the necessary drivers. Once windows loads you will get the "found new hardware" box and will ask for the cd for the motherboard etc. So it is possible for it to work. If it doesn't work, you can still use that drive as a slave drive without losing any data.
@jony218, I'm glad you got it to work, but unless you know WHY it worked, you are in category 3, which doesn't help TC.
pspweazl, if have spare hd or can borrow one then do a fresh install of windows as you will not save any time doing a repair compared to fresh install. did that repair on a friend's pc as i didn't have a spare hd with me & took me longer doing the repair then if i had done a fresh install.
pspweazl, I've done many swaps of older boards to newer, with new CPUs and RAM. Most recently I did a Dell machine which had a P4 530 and the motherboard with the i915 chipset. I swapped it out with an ECS board that had a iG31 chipset and a Core2 e4500. From my experience, which has been many, staying with the same North/South bridge manf. (ie Intel, VIA, ATI/AMD, Nvidia, etc.) should allow you to boot into the existing HDD OS loaded. Of course there were some driver issues (sound, LAN, and some N./S. bridge), but none that prevent you from booting in. You may want to boot into safe mode the first time after the new board is installed, uninstall all older drivers, then update with new ones in regular mode. Keep in mind I only do this if I'm staying with brand "X" CPU.
Okay this may be my solution: Here is the board I am replaceing (the fried SOB): http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWebSit...=1&DetailName=Specification&MenuID=44&LanID=0 and now I found this board which looks like it may have the same chipset: http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWebSit...D=1&DetailName=Specification&MenuID=1&LanID=0 So do you guys think that this will work and then I would not need to do any reinstallations or lose any data? I am not a huge fan of the PCchips boards (mostly because the sodder points are to high and they ground out on the case) but for the price it would be okay to me.
Should be close enough, but I can't guarantee it. You need to make sure that your existing CPU can run in an AM2+ socket.
Yeah according to the spec's my AMD Athlon 64 X2 should work fine. Well at least until I have the dough to build a new system from the ground up! LOL
If you have another computer with another HDD, then maybe you can transfer that data that you don't want to lose onto the other HDD.
That board looks close enough in terms of chipset. You don't have to buy the same manuf. of the boards just getting something with a 6100 based chipset should be fine.
Okay so just an FYI it worked great! So heres the crappy part of the deal, the motherboard swap out worked great but now my 23" LCD TV/Monitor went out all of a sudden (looks like the internal power unit went out)what a freakin messed up thing! So anyway......the mobo worked great after the bios were installed (using my father in laws monitor) thank you to all of those whop helped and lent advice. Peace out guys and gals!
