[jterwill]

I need to know a safe procedure for upgrading my motherboard, cpu, and memory and not having to do clean reinstall of my up to date XP. I used to create a couple of hardware profiles and Windows would ask at boot which I wanted and a third choice "none of above" and when selecting this it would force windows to look for all new hardware and that worked. With XP there is no third choice. Result is no boot. I also thought uninstalling devices in Device Manager and then shutting down, installing new mother board/cpu and new memory and firing it up to see if windows boots so I can install new drivers. I have cloned my hardrive and am using a copy to "experiment" I'm upgrading from P4 3.0Ghz and intel mbd. to AMD PHENOM Quad core and going from DDR to DDR2 memory. Can I coax my current operating system XP PRO sp3 to accept and utilize the new power without having to reinstall everything. Any help?Thanks,Jeff

[loserOlimbs]

Hmmm.

Well, you might be uninstall all drivers, then give it a go. Install the proper new drivers, and it can work, but its a rough ride sometimes too.

Another concern is your liscense, with all of those changes it might see it as a new PC for the same old key and require you get a new key to run.

[leroys1000]

If you have the XP install CD you can do a repair install.
Boot to the XP CD and hit enter when prompted to continue
installation.
It should detect your windows installation and give you the
option to repair it.
Run the repair install,then reboot to the hard drive and install
the new hardware drivers.
Windows may make you activate again due to hardware changes.
Does not affect installed programs or wipe data.

[srhoades]

Before you replace the CPU motherboard boot into safe mode and uninstall all your devices via device manager, sound, video, usb, onbaord network controllers. Then do the swap, boot from your windows CD and perform a repair install. I've done this countless times.

[TheOutcaste]

This guide may be useful
Replace Motherboard on a Windows XP System

HTH

Jerry