Quick Question Need Quick Answer

[jonathan1107]

Hi I'm about to swap motherboards for my PC. I had 2 questions:

1. If I install my current motherboard into another PC (using that PC's hard drives and whatnot) will I have to reinstall Windows on that PC? Or i can just Boot from the same hard drive that contained the windows partition on that PC? I was running a RAID 0 setup on my mobo (with my 2x HDDs) will my current MOBO settings follow up to that other PC once I install the mobo in it?
2. Then, when I install my new mobo into my PC, will I have to re-install windows also? can I specify the boot partition? I imagine I'll have to tell the mobo which HDDs are to be in RAID 0... Is RAID 0 still the best setting for 2x HDDs (for read/write speed increase)

Any other things that would be important to consider when swapping a MOBO (with a new CPU, gpu) but keeping the same HDDs and SSDs?

 

[eidairaman1]

what OS are you going to use?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

If the motherboard, hard drive, and operating system aren't changing, you shouldn't have to reinstall. If you are changing components like the graphics card, make sure to uninstall the driver before pulling it. The motherboard CMOS battery should retain all volatile BIOS settings during the transfer.

Onboard RAID generally will not transfer unless the technology is the same (e.g. Intel Rapid Storage Technology to Intel Rapid Storage Technology). If they aren't the same, there is a very high likelihood the chip will not see the RAID and the only way to reestablish the RAID is to destroy the existing RAID creating a new one.

Whenever a motherboard changes and nothing else does, it is highly recommend to reinstall the OS. You'll likely run into quirks and other issues until you do because the drivers on the hard drive won't match the drivers the new motherboard requires. And I'm talking identical motherboards here (same model). If it isn't the same model, you should go into it assuming you're going to have to do a clean install.

 

[jonathan1107]

Won't the motherboard detect the new hardware and Simply install the new drivers from there? Obviously, I'd have to uninstall the old drivers from old hardware. But I thought I would just then tell the mobo to run windows 7 from the same hard drive as before. Both PC's run w7,

Basically I'm installing my current mobo, cpu, cooler into my brothers case. His hdds will remain and his gpu too, so will his other parts.

Obviously I expect to have to remove my raid settings from my current mobo before I transfer my current mobo into his case.

When I'm done with that, my case will get a be mobo, cpu, gpu, keep same RAM. My hdds will remain (raid zero) how does one "destroy a raid zero"? And my current ssd would remain as well. Obviously some old drivers on that ssd (which is the one containing most my drivers and Windows 7) will have to be removed before I install the new ones.

Anything else I'm forgetting?

 

[DayKnight]

Hi I'm about to swap motherboards for my PC. I had 2 questions:

1. If I install my current motherboard into another PC (using that PC's hard drives and whatnot) will I have to reinstall Windows on that PC?
   
2. Then, when I install my new mobo into my PC, will I have to re-install windows also?

Any other things that would be important to consider when swapping a MOBO (with a new CPU, gpu) but keeping the same HDDs and SSDs?

1: Yes.

2: Yes.

 

[Tallencor]

1: Yes.

2: Yes.

This is what I was always told so as to avoid conflicts within the os in regards to hardware/chip set drivers. Mess inbound kinda thing.

 

[DayKnight]

This is what I was always told so as to avoid conflicts within the os in regards to hardware/chip set drivers. Mess inbound kinda thing.

True. I have experience. Lots of BSOD.

Never think about upgrading your motherboard if you dont want to REDO windows. NEVER EVER THINK!.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Won't the motherboard detect the new hardware and Simply install the new drivers from there?

SATA/RAID, no. It only does that when installing Windows the first time or hot plugging a device after Windows is already running. Windows will just BSOD if the driver it was told to use previously doesn't work.

Basically I'm installing my current mobo, cpu, cooler into my brothers case. His hdds will remain and his gpu too, so will his other parts.

Recommend clean install.

My hdds will remain (raid zero) how does one "destroy a raid zero"?

When the RAID chip boots, it looks at the HDDs plugged into it and searches for a RAID it recognizes. If it doesn't find it, it assumes the drives are non-RAID'd. If any data is written to the drives in this non-RAID'd state, it effectively corrupts the RAID. In order to put them back in RAID in this state, the only way is to overwrite the old RAID data on the drives which effectively destroys the old RAID in time or plug the drives back into a chip that recognizes the RAID.

 

[jonathan1107]

SATA/RAID, no. It only does that when installing Windows the first time or hot plugging a device after Windows is already running. Windows will just BSOD if the driver it was told to use previously doesn't work.


Recommend clean install.


When the RAID chip boots, it looks at the HDDs plugged into it and searches for a RAID it recognizes. If it doesn't find it, it assumes the drives are non-RAID'd. If any data is written to the drives in this non-RAID'd state, it effectively corrupts the RAID. In order to put them back in RAID in this state, the only way is to overwrite the old RAID data on the drives which effectively destroys the old RAID in time or plug the drives back into a chip that recognizes the RAID.

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so if I'm getting this right, I'd just install the HDDs (raid 0 ones) onto the new motherboard, get into the bios and "reconfigure" the RAID 0 as if it had never existed which will put these HDDs in RAID 0 again without affecting the data already on it? correct?

or is it something else? like going in my actual motherboard (not the new one) somehow "destroying" the old RAID 0 by somehow "undoing it" ... I guess telling the mobo to delete it... then hook em up to new mobo and reconfigure RAID 0 from scratch...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

No, if you plug the HDDs in and it doesn't detect the RAID0 immediately, it never will. Should this happen, the only way to put them back into RAID0 is effectively to erase them both or return them to the computer they came from.

If you don't want to risk losing data with RAID, back everything up first.

 

[jonathan1107]

Thank you guys. I made backups we'll see if I get lucky