New motherboard and CPU

In that case without the ability to start Win7 again your options are to:

- see if the HD will start up on its own with new mobo.

- after installing the new mobo, boot Paragon Adaptive Restore CD to remove all drivers and prepare Win7 to boot on new hardware.

- Boot Acronis 10+ with Universal Restore to save an image of Win7 that will do the same thing, then reimage it to the HD.

- clean reinstall. Clean Install Windows 7

This is getting a little over my head but it's a good opportunity to learn

How/where do I get these software program's and do I understand correctly that only one of the two is needed.?

gregrocker said:

In that case without the ability to start Win7 again your options are to:

- see if the HD will start up on its own with new mobo.

- after installing the new mobo, boot Paragon Adaptive Restore CD to remove all drivers and prepare Win7 to boot on new hardware.

- Boot Acronis 10+ with Universal Restore to save an image of Win7 that will do the same thing, then reimage it to the HD.

- clean reinstall. Clean Install Windows 7

The Paragon and Acronis software is paid software you can buy by googling the name given.

Do you have Recovery Disks, or a Win7 installation DVD available to clean reinstall?

OK Greg, I will do some searching, do I need both packages?

I have the OEM cd that I purchased but no Recovery Disks. Can I make those from my wife's installation or do they have to be made from mine?

Incidentally, I'm very grateful to you and the other guys for all this guidance and support

You could use your OEM DVD to clean reinstall after you install the new hardware, then try the activation before adding all the programs and files to see if MS is going to give you a break (as they have others).

As I said, the HD might start up on the new hardware although I wouldn't count on it.

If not your best paid option would be Paragon Adaptive Restore CD which might still be available for trial, since it only requires being booted to adapt the HD to start on the new hardware - no imaging needed.

gregrocker said:

Using the booted Win7 installation DVD you can Sysprep your HD in another machine to remove all drivers, activation and other changes so it will start up on new hardware: Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

But first I would see if it will start on its own.

I did and it did

I tried to get one more boot out of the old system but, no joy so I went ahead and installed the new mobo/chip and memory. I booted the new system and got through to a message that proper boot record (or words to that effect) was needed. I used the Asus boot manager to select the second sata drive and Windows booted with all my settings in place. I then installed all the new drivers, re-booted, and it's still working.

The only problem I'm experiencing is that the BIOS discovers both my SATA drives but will not offer the second one, which contains Windows, as a boot option. I have to keep selecting it in the Asus start up boot manager. Any ideas out there as to how I go about resolving this glitch??

Update:
I just activated 7 over the internet. The system said I had two days before it was required so I thought I would give it a try.

I think tomorrow I will buy a lottery ticket???

Thanks again Greg, I swapped the SATA cables over on the mobo to put the boot disk on #1 and it solved the problem.