Upgrading motherboard on Windows 7

[chaotic]

I am going to be upgrading my motherboard, along with the processor and memory, with an existing Windows 7 installation. I always expect things to go horribly wrong, of course, so I have backed up as needed. Still, I would really rather do a successful upgrade of the OS rather than a clean install.

I know with XP you can just do a repair install before letting the OS boot with the new hardware, but I have never upgraded this way with Vista, and I expect 7 is similar to Vista. I saw that it may help my chances to delete the current IDE controllers before the change ( MSFN Forums > New Motherboard upgrade with Vista ). Does that mean I just delete the relevant drivers in Device Manager? I'm not clear about exactly which drivers this entails in Device Manager. And the following link is for XP, but I'm wondering how relevant it would be on Vista or Windows 7: How to replace the motherboard on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

The new motherboard should be fairly similar otherwise, it would be updating from an AMD SB600 south bridge to an SB700, but it's staying with an AMD brand chip etc.

Any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[scaramonga]

Still, I would really rather do a successful upgrade of the OS rather than a clean install.

Highly NOT recommended!

Your asking for long term problems in the future going down that route. A clean install is always the best option after installing new hardware, especially when replacing the motherboard.

You will save yourself a lot of time and grief in the long run by doing a fresh install of Windows 7, for all the time it takes anyway.

 

[chaotic]

I agree, I normally would not do an upgrade install. But the hardware change is sort of unexpected, as I need to drop the hardware into another machine that died. And I expect there would be longer-term problems, but as this is a beta, I don't expect it to be too long-term anyhow, so I'd rather experiment with stuff like this at this point rather than in the future when I am actually expecting it to be a solid, final install.

So, I know that a clean install is best, and I may have to do it anyway, but I want to see what I can get away with first. I would think people have tried this already?

Oh, and I found the answer to one of my previous questions in the original post here: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/new...-motherboard-without-reinstalling-windows.ars

That describes in more detail how to change the PCI IDE controller driver to a standard driver, for anybody who is following the thread.

 

[patio]

Well since not many have yet to do a Repair install of Win7 i would use this opportunity to experiment to see how it works but expect to do a clean install in the long run...
That way you get the best of both worlds.

 

[djhallucn8]

I have performed it twice now with no issues & I didn't even uninstall drivers.

 

[smarteyeball]

As long as your data's backed up, give it a whirl Worse case scenario, you have do the full re-install.

 

[genesis]

I am going to be upgrading my motherboard, along with the processor and memory, with an existing Windows 7 installation. I always expect things to go horribly wrong, of course, so I have backed up as needed. Still, I would really rather do a successful upgrade of the OS rather than a clean install.

I know with XP you can just do a repair install before letting the OS boot with the new hardware, but I have never upgraded this way with Vista, and I expect 7 is similar to Vista. I saw that it may help my chances to delete the current IDE controllers before the change ( MSFN Forums > New Motherboard upgrade with Vista ). Does that mean I just delete the relevant drivers in Device Manager? I'm not clear about exactly which drivers this entails in Device Manager. And the following link is for XP, but I'm wondering how relevant it would be on Vista or Windows 7: How to replace the motherboard on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

The new motherboard should be fairly similar otherwise, it would be updating from an AMD SB600 south bridge to an SB700, but it's staying with an AMD brand chip etc.

Any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated!

This will NOT work.

Windows 7's "upgrade" will not run if you try to run it from the DVD. You will not be able to boot the machine once you swap the boards if the HAL is not an EXACT match - it will blue screen immediately on start.

The so-called "automatic repair" doesn't work to fix this either.

Been there, done that, no solution. This is a MAJOR problem - with XP you could boot the install CD and do an upgrade install, and it would work. That option is NOT available with Win7.

 

[NuT]

back up your stuff and do a fresh install.

 

[dlcampbe]

I just changed from a Biostar motherboard to one made by Gigabyte, both AMD, but with different CPUs and memory. My initial Win 7 install after the change was clean on a new HDD, it worked great, Win 7 included all the necessary drivers, I didn’t even need to use the motherboard install disk.

But then, I plugged the original HDD with Win 7 and XP in a dual-boot configuration. Much to my surprise, the next boot-up was with the boot manager screen asking me to select which operating system I wanted to use.

Win 7 and XP both seemed compatible with the new motherboard. What I discovered in the bios was that the the old HDD had been selected as the HDD to boot from. That was easy enough to change, and now I boot from the new HDD and can access the info on the old HDD with no problem.

 

[Antman]

Same chipsets.

 

[AlexGP]

Heck, I moved a HDD with 7100 from computer A to computer B (totally different configuration) and after 2 required restarts it works like a dream! I havent seen that since Windows 98!

So you`ll be fine!

 

[dlcampbe]

Same chipsets.

No, the Biostar southbridge was n Force 410 and the Gigabyte is SB700.

I didn't do any extensive testing with the old HDD OS, so I really don't know how well the change worked. I could access both systems however.

 

[eternitykh]

I switched my motherboard and cpu with win7 x64 7600, no problems there, windows booted up right away on first try after swapped parts.

I went from a asus p5b-e (965) with a e6600, to a p5q se plus (p45) with a q8200.

booted into desktop with zero problems, then I proceeded to install latest drivers from asus and intel.

I don't see what's the issue.

 

[Dwarf]

Whereas it would appear from comments on this thread that people have had no problems with changing motherboards without needing to reinstall W7, it is still a good idea to ensure that any important data and files is/are backed up first. That way, should you be unfortunate and find that the only way forward is reinstallation, you won't have lost any information.

Bottom line - make sure that you have backups of data (especially important data). Never assume that because other people have successfully done this that you will be able to. Always make sure that you are fully prepared.

 

[genesis]

Sometimes it works on Windows XP too.

But when it doesn't, its recoverable on Windows XP. It is NOT RECOVERABLE on Windows 7.

 

[dno]

I've been doing "windows xp repairs" on people's BSOD reboot loops for years with a simple reload on top, booting from the winxp cd whenever the quicker tricks wouldn't get around the HAL issues.

Win7 not having the option of detecting a previous install and keeping the apps / user files exactly as they are and just fixing the kernel problems seems like a pretty big hole on MS' part for this release. Maybe there are just useful tools I haven't spotted yet.

Another disappointment was not being able to upgrade from xp directly to 7 to keep the apps that are compatible. The user files are the quick part, reinstalling a pile of applications isn't always so nice. On the plus side, a simple temp upgrade to vista w/ SP1 & no activation will allow the apps to get upgraded into 7. Maybe they couldn't fit that automation onto the DVD.

I'm not disappointed in the OS. Just seems like they could have been much more upgrade / repair friendly. Maybe some thoughts for SP1.

 

[radianation]

I tried to swap my motherboard from an older m2a-mvp to m2n32-sli deluxe. The computer wouldn't boot. It would get to the windows loading screen and then reboot. I tried to remove my custom drivers and system devices as I would have done years ago on a Windows XP install and still had no success. I even tried without any extra devices just so I could get Windows 7 to boot enough to remove the junk and get going again. Safe mode wouldn't boot. Repair couldn't find a solution. No luck.

It took me 3 hours of screwing around with this and only 30 minutes to do a clean install. I've done so many installs lately that I have my applications (quite a bit of them) installing in about an hour if I'm quick. That's still longer than it would take if I could just swap out the motherboards, but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way if you're changing chipsets.

My new MSI 790FX-GD70 arrived today and I'm looking to upgrade from an Asus M3N72-D... Probably going to do another clean install for that one. Sigh.

 

[Tepid]

Another disappointment was not being able to upgrade from xp directly to 7

My assumption to this is that they supported the direct upgrade to Vista as it was the next Windows Version in line, but now that Main Stream support for XP ended in April of 09, (You can get extended and pay for support for XP, but not general open support for XP), they remove the option, to not have to field those calls. Understandably, in my opinion.

Note, that MS are on a 5 year Main Stream Support Lifecycle and really always has been.

XP became an exception to this due to several factors. SP 2 and 3 Development slowed the development of Longhorn (Vista), the ending of Longhorn version 1 and restarting the development played a large role in XP lasting for so long, which it was never meant to do.

Which is why we will probably see Windows 8 about 2012 -/+ or 2013. This is a guess, but should be about right. Some say 2011, some 2014. Unless something goes wrong.
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To the original poster....... I would also recommend a clean install. Swapping Mobo's even if you can do a repair install, will not remove any potential conflicts of Drivers, etc.
Chipset drivers, etc. A reapir install is NOT going to remove existing drivers, and registry entries pointing to those drivers. Running Driver updates, may also not change these pointers. Conflicts are a very real possibility no matter how well you think the swap went.

 

[bigmck]

I agree, I normally would not do an upgrade install.

The install is not bad at all. It took me about 40 minutes and there were no problems. I also suggest that you do a clean install. It will save you trouble in the long run. There is a tutorial that I suggest you print out and keep by your side.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html
The Win 7 disk has all of the drivers that you will need. Good Luck

 

[Saint Cad]

I'm in the same boat.
Just upgraded my system and the only thing transfering over is the hard drive.
The Win7-32 bit on there had a nervous breakdown when it saw all of the new equipment and system repair was worthless. When I get home, I'm going to do an upgrade to 64bit (the cpu is now a pentium-dual 6500 with 4GB RAM). I was thinking express but your right with all those MoBo drivers. Might as well start over.

Hey, speaking of that, I know that 1GB is not really 1,000,000,000 but rather 1024x1024x1024. I've seen the 32-bit OS limit on RAM as 3.X and 4GB. The point may be moot for me, but if I plunk in 2x2048MB in RAM, would Win7 recognize every bit of it?