Changing motherboard without reinstalling Wndows 7 Pro

You can try starting Win7 up on the new hardware, but it might not start. The easiest thing to do then is to Make Windows 7 bootable after motherboard swap - Windows 7 Help Forums.

Thanks for the link.

Though in order to prevent myself from using that in the first place I have read it is best (essentially required) to uninstall all motherboard drivers and software first.

I am wondering if I uninstall motherboard drivers through the Device Manager and software through the Uninstall Programs List?

If so, I can not seem to figure out what is specific to my motherboard. Any help on what should be uninstalled would be great.

Device Manager:
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps78aee7c7.jpg
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...psfd1f16f9.jpg

Program List:
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2dba4b1f.jpg
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps9a2cfcd4.jpg
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5999e2c0.jpg
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps41dbb92a.jpg

Going to burn Paragon Adaptive Restore to a disc as well.

If anyone else has any advice I would appreciate it. :)

PAR disk does it all. It may prompt for SATA drivers but most likely not. WHen you start up Win7 it will change out drivers in a cascade you can monitor by clicking on the driver loading animation in System Tray. Do the requested reboot when it finishes.

Make sure Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) is enabled and run all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates to completion. This should provide any newer drivers and relevant patches for the hardware. None should be skipped - only Bing and Essentials can be hidden.

I would not import any drivers not still missing in Device Manager after doing all of that, unless issues arise pointing to a driver. Win7 is the authority on its drivers, not an outdated driver disk.

Sometimes it's necessary to run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times
after confirming the Active partition is System Reserved or C, to repair boot issues.

gregrocker said:

PAR disk does it all. It may prompt for SATA drivers but most likely not. WHen you start up Win7 it will change out drivers in a cascade you can monitor by clicking on the driver loading animation in System Tray. Do the requested reboot when it finishes.

Make sure Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) is enabled and run all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates to completion. This should provide any newer drivers and relevant patches for the hardware. None should be skipped - only Bing and Essentials can be hidden.

I would not import any drivers not still missing in Device Manager after doing all of that, unless issues arise pointing to a driver. Win7 is the authority on its drivers, not an outdated driver disk.

Sometimes it's necessary to run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times
after confirming the Active partition is System Reserved or C, to repair boot issues.

As a bit of an update, I am going from an ASUS M3N78 Pro to an MSI Z87-G43 full ATX. Ordered the parts and they should be here within a week.

Regarding the part in bold, are you saying PAR will detect my old ASUS motherboard drivers/software and uninstall those while allowing my new MSI drivers to install?

Essentially, are all of these steps required?:

1) Create image, move to backup HDD. (How big will 1TB of data be in a image file?).
2) Manually uninstall motherboard drivers/software (which I can't find in Windows 7).
3) Run System Prep method one.
4) Boot into Paragon P2P, follow steps as posted.
5) Exit into BIOS, then boot from HDD and into Windows 7.

Or can I skip step 2? What about step 3? Is that required with Paragon?

SIW2 said:

Plug your existing HD into the new mobo. Boot up paragon cd. Point paragon at your windows installation. Done.

No need for syprepping, doing anything manually or any other mucking around.

When you boot up win 7 it will install the drivers from it's own system32\driverstore\filerepository.

It is only if win7 doesn't have the drivers, that you would add them with Paragon.

So to clarify, Paragon will make Windows 7 install the new motherboard drivers automatically? Or will I have to download them in advance onto the HDD? Essentially, how do I ensure that Win 7 will have the drivers beforehand?

And a quick question about the warning part:

Sometimes the internal hard drive is not recognized in Paragon P2P Adjust OS due to missing SATA or RAID driver. In that case add specific drivers to Windows PE based Paragon Recovery Environment.

Step 2 of the warning process is to find the .INF file for the required driver. Will Windows 7 already have this driver and where would I find it? I also have a 64bit OS, so if I have to inject drivers will I be able to do that? I ask because of the final bit saying I will need 32bit drivers for injection (if required).

Finally, will Paragon leave anything behind after it is done that might affect performance and boot times?

Thanks for all the help so far everyone, I really appreciate it.