New motherboard.

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Slashback

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Hi there

I'm planning on upgrading my old i3 MSI H55 e21 mobo to a new i5 CPU on an MSI H81 M P33 mobo.

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate and will be installing all of my "old" hardware ie. GFX card, RAM and HDD etc.

Is it possible to do this without doing a complete format of the HDD, as there is a bunch of stuff on there that I would like to keep...games, photo's and music.

I have read conflicting statements about the necessity of re-formatting the drive or leaving it as is and just re-installing new drivers for the hardware.
Can anyone shed some light here please?

Cheers!
 
If you're just swapping out the motherboard, Windows should handle that fairly well on its own without having to tweak anything before the migration.

You can however use Sysprep by following this guide, which will remove hardware drivers and software and return Windows into a generalised state. If done correctly, and by making sure that none of the warnings apply to you, this should be a pain-free transfer.
 
Just my 2c, but this is a bit of a touch and go situation. Sometimes it will work if you directly swap the motherboard like that and sometimes it just won't and you will hit a nice bluescreen to start your day. I think it all depends on what manufacturer and drivers you where running before the switch. If the new board has similar hardware then it might just not break. I would say your best bet it to uninstall all of the hardware specific drivers prior to performing the migration then you should be okay.
 
just report back...
I got it all done, and did have to format the hard drive, but I had a brand new one lying around which I've installed in the machine, and will copy over all the other stuff, photos, music etc from the "old" drive. But now there is another problem! I have fitted my gfx card, a GTX 750 Ti card and it seems that its partially obstructing the other PCI slot (PCI-e2) which so I wont be able to get my sound card, Asus Xonar DG, fitted! and the sound cars is a normal PCI card so would not fit any way! Does anyone know if there is an "extension" cable type thingy that could be used in this instance that would also convert PCI e2 to straight PCI?
Cheers
 
Slashback said:
... so I wont be able to get my sound card, Asus Xonar DG, fitted! and the sound cars is a normal PCI card so would not fit any way! Does anyone know if there is an "extension" cable type thingy that could be used in this instance that would also convert PCI e2 to straight PCI?
Click to expand...

Buy a new PCI-Express sound card. PCI-Express is not backwards compatible with the PCI standard.
 
CataclysmZA said:
Buy a new PCI-Express sound card. PCI-Express is not backwards compatible with the PCI standard.
Click to expand...

Thanks Cataclysm..that makes sense!

I just need to see if a sound card will fit, or look for a cable riser I think they are called?
 
Slashback said:
Thanks Cataclysm..that makes sense!

I just need to see if a sound card will fit, or look for a cable riser I think they are called?
Click to expand...

You can find a ribbon cable that will extend the PCI-Express 1x slot a little further so that you can fit the card in, though the on-board sound is pretty damn good these days. If you use a USB headset, or get one in the future, you'll probably never need an add-in sound card in any case.
 
You're right there, the onboard sound is not bad at all! I'm using some old Logitech X 530's and have a 10" car sub driven by a 250W amp connected up as well! The neighbors hate me when I fire up World of Tanks!!
The nice thing about the Xonar was the built in headphone amp..:cry: I'm probably going to try to find a Dragonfly DAC to use when I need to use my headphones...but they seem pretty scarce here!
 
If you're just gaming, I don't see a need for a sound card
 
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