How to boot off a swapped motherboard? ( 3 Views )

1. Got a question for you guys. I swapped my athlon64 board with an athlonXP board(selling A64 to a friend so I'm going to use the old NF7-S for now). I dont feel like reinstalling, but windows wont boot. It will get to the Windows XP Pro loading screen with the scrolling blue bar on the bottom. Stays there for about 10 secs then goes to a blue screen saying something like system cannot boot from this device.
   
   I belive it is somehow driver related since these boards use SATA hard drives. I used to be able to swap hard drives around on old motherboards that used IDE without any problems. Is there anyway to remove the SATA drivers permanently so it will work on this swap out? Or maybe force the new drivers to be loaded in somehow so windows will be able to boot from the other board?
   
   If it comes down to it....i guess I can just reformat/reinstall but thats a 1hr or so procedure including driver installation and programs.
   
   
   (pelin, Brazil)


2. I have done this many times. I use sysprep and run it before I do the swap. I would first get everything hooked up and tested to see if it all works, then last connect the harddrive. The processo goes like this.
   
   Save Data
   Run sysprep (this is the last thing you will do)
   build new system using new board.
   test connections
   connect harddrive and wait for windows to redetech all new hardware. This will usually take up to 10 minutes.
   
   THere are many guides on how to use sysprep and its options online. just google it. :)
   
   This method also works when ghosting worksations, I do this a few times a week. I have one machine setup as the master image and make modifications to it. We then run sysprep and take a ghost image. We then deploy that image to all workstations. These are usually ones with completely diffrent hardware. We also use the "Universal Imaging Utility" found here. This will install all the newest drivers when detecting the hardware. The utility has a broad base of available drivers.
   
   I hope this is useful. :)
   
   
   (ufuk, Lesotho)


3. Not being able to boot Windows after swapping motherboards is 99% of the time a lack of the right IDE driver. The reason Sysprep works is because it puts lots of generic drivers into your registry and windows system folders, drivers that aren't specifically for your motherboard, but are generic enough to work on most IDE controllers, in a slower mode, like without bus mastering, etc.
   
   It might not work though if you use SATA... I don't think the generic Sysprep drivers work with SATA but I could be wrong. So, if that's the case, there's other ways:
   
   Another trick that works for me most of the time is before I swap the motherboard out, I take the driver cd from the NEW motherboard and install the IDE driver. That's all. This has worked for me many times, but sometimes it won't work on stupid Asus boards because their driver install program will detect that you don't have their motherboard installed and won't let you install the drivers... Stupid...
   
   If that is the case you can do the sysprep thing or you can just do a windows xp repair installation, that usually works.
   
   One tool that can be very useful and save you TONS of time is a hard disk controller card. If you have one, or a SATA card if you use SATA drives, you just:
   
   install the card in computer with old motherboard, install card's drivers in windows
   Swap out motherboard
   put card in new motherboard and hook hard disk to it, and set bios to boot off that
   
   Then once you boot into windows and install the new motherboard's drivers (especially the IDE drivers) then you can remove the card and hook the hard disk to the on-board controller.
   
   
   (engin, Mayotte)


4. Hey guys, thanks for the tips. However it didnt work :p .
   
   I did the sysprep procedures. I looked up some online guides and I thought I loaded the RAID drivers correctly....turns out that I didnt. I was too lazy to pull the hard drive out again to retry the sysprep on the old motherboard. I just did the Repair type install and everything seems to be in working order. I didnt get a chance to try what Hellbore suggested, although I think it might of worked. I will keep this in mind the next time I need to swap boards.
   
   Thanks!
   
   
   (Onur, Turkey)

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