Upgrade Advice

neo468

I'm upgrading a buddies system. Basically built a new system for him and want to keep the existing os with all his stuff on it. The old system is 2 maxtor 30gb hdd with windows xp pro sp2. The new system is a p4 3.6 ghz with 1gb ddr2 533 ram, with the asus p5ad2 mboard. How should i go about doing this? Can I simply put the drives into the new system, keeping the mirror and os intact. Will putting these existing drives into the new pc significantly hamper the performance of the new pc. Thanks in advance

RussS

OK - here is my well worn advice. Sometimes it works .... sometimes it doesn't

Before you start - add/remove programs and uninstall anything to do with the old motherboard. Next go into system properties and remove all you can from the device manager - especially graphics and audio controllers. Take out any system controllers that you can recognise that are from the old motherboard chipset then shut the machine down. When first booting the new build bring it up in safe mode and install anything you can from the new motherboard CD then reboot and install the rest.


If that doesn't work your other choice is to boot from the XP CVD and do the 2nd repair option - then reinstall service packs etc.

jlewis92683

You still might run into problems. I know that when we upgraded our worksations at school we still ran into problems. what XP does is it documents the components that are installed on the machine. and if the equipment installed is drastically different from the original specs XP will not boot up. IF that happens you have to repair install or reinstall. even then you might not be able to activate XP. if that happens you can call microsoft but they will probably tell you that since you upgraded your system you have top get a new copy of XP. And all i got to say to that is " Those greedy bastards on the board of directors for microsoft."

risingtechie

I've had to do this numerous times. Almost everytime I had to use the cd and use the repair option. Even then, like jlewis92683 said, I had to contact Microsoft to get them give me a new installation code to reactivate Windows. However, I've never had them tell me to purchase a new version of XP. They just ask if you have the OS installed on any other computers and what the reason for upgrading was. I always tell them "no" and that it's "because the motherboard went bad and had to be replaced." That's always been good enough for them. The only circumstance I can think of that would cause them to tell you to buy a new OS is if the old computer was a Dell, Gateway, or HP and the replacement motherboard wasn't from the OEM. However, I've replaced motherboards in Dell's and HP's before that weren't from either HP or Dell and Microsoft was always happy to give me a new code. Best of luck.