Craig Gobbi wrote:

I am about to replace my Ausu A7A166 mainboard and AMD1.6+ cpu with somethin
faster (havent decided on what yet) I just want to do a straight swap into
my case keeping all of the cards I have now including a GF5900fx. I am
running XP pro.
My question is will the hard drive chuck a wobbly the 1st time it is started
with a new mainboard installed?

Yes. Each and every time till you do a 'repair' resintall from your CD,
which will save your programs and settings, to redetect the hardware.


Is there a good way to do this?

Boot your XP CD and say no to the first 'repair' question (rescue console
or rescue floppy) and go on as if installing fresh. When it detects the
existing XP installation on the hard drive it will ask if you want to
repair it. Say yes and follow the instructions. (If it doesn't ask if you
want to repair then you have a problem with your existing installation. In
that case, do NOT continue unless you want to wipe out the existing install.)

Since you'll be reinstalling from the original CD you'll loose your service
packs (they aren't on it), including media player and I.E. updates, and
need to redo those.

Note: if your original CD is pre service pack 1 then after the repair
reinstall you'll be confronted with applications complaining and installer
attempting to reinstall things. Don't panic. Ignore those and cancel the
installer's 'installing' attempts. Everything will automagically work again
after SP1 (or SP2) is reinstalled (as that's what's 'missing').

Downloading the 'IT professionals' full install (not small. SP1 is 133 meg
and SP2 is 266 meg)) of the service pack before you change the system is a
good idea as it'll then already be on your hard drive and avoid any
internet problems you may run into after changing the hardware.

Burn your full service packs, including media player and I.E. updates, to
CD and keep with your XP CD in case you ever need to do another repair (or
fresh install for that matter).


Thanks for any help
Craig