Replacing Mobo, got a question

[Soilwork]

hey all,
I have to replace a motherboard and processor at my dad's office. the system is a celeron based, running windows 98. do I have to go through any special steps to replace the board or can i just pull it out and slam in a new one? I can't deleted any data at all though.
Thanks

[PCgeek]

if the board is identical then no. If you use another brand with the same chipset maybe no as well. But if its a different chipset you hafta at least repair the windows install. Most likely reformat. So start backing up the data...

[Soilwork]

shot, thanks dude

[Ginsu543]

You may be able to do what I did when I moved from a Pentium III system to an Athlon XP system. Before I swapped motherboards, I went into the Device Manager and deleted all the devices that referred to my old mobo, including disk drives and system devices. Then I shut down, replaced the mobo, and rebooted. As the OS detected new hardware, it asked me for the drivers. I simply installed each of the device drivers in turn, and bingo, I had ported my entire hard drive onto my new mobo hardware. I didn't have to reformat or do a repair install, and I was able to keep all my old files. One warning, though... you may run into trouble if not all the device drivers from the old mobo was erased and begins to conflict with the new device drivers. Also, this may not ensure that you have the fastest and cleanest system possible. But it's worth a shot if you don't want to do a total reinstall.

[therealwesty]

What OS is it? I've changed motherboards under WindowsXP a couple of time with absolutly no problems. Different brand of board and chipset etc... the most important drivers to erace from device manager are the IDE drivers, set them back to the standard WindowsXP ones. The new board will have no problem with the standard IDE driver and from there you can relace all the other drivers.

[Rudegar]

when i changed mobo on a system from an old slotA athlon700 with a asus via k7V board to a asus p4s533MX and a p4 2.4Ghz
it would go fatal bluescreen just before windows could start loading
and i had to reinstall xp but non of the settings were lost anything still worked and all shortcuts were still there and worked so i suppose the reinstall worked out a bit more like a repair

[sergeguyz]

what kind of memory are you usin, if its sdram, good luck findin a board that supports it, but thats only likely if your using an older coppermine/tualatin celeron

[Soilwork]

I managed it no problems. deleted all the chipset etc drivers and plugged in new mobo and processor and its works like a bastard. thanks for the help guys

[Ginsu543]

WTG, man! :D

[PCgeek]

Nice Job :) I woulda been lazy and reformated lol