up vote 1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

When I used to have Windows XP and upgraded the computer, I got bluescreens at boot, usually due to a changed IDE controller. How do I avoid this? I am now upgrading windows 7 to windows 7 changing the motherboard. I want to avoid bluescreens and failed boots.

link|improve this question
100% accept rate
feedback

1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote accepted

Format your hard drive and do a clean install. Operating systems aren't really designed to deal with upgrading a motherboard. Sysprep is the only way I'd consider doing it, but you could try booting into safe mode and uninstalling all devices present in Device Manager. I don't believe you can change between different HAL kernels or bootloaders, though, so if you're going from IDE to AHCI or from BIOS to UEFI you have to clean install.

link|improve this answer
Just did a reinstall. Luckily all I need to do is: 1) Copy over the program's Users\ Profile Settings 2) Run the program's installer. Usually that's enough to get back most of the settings. – unixman83 Apr 26 '11 at 13:51
-1 For the format the hard drive. All versions of Windows, post 2000 support some type of repair mode installation. That does not wipe out files. – unixman83 Apr 26 '11 at 13:52
I find repair installs have problems which clean installs never suffer from and occasionally don't fix anything at all because of what the system tries to reuse, therefore I never recommend them. I did not say "delete your data". I assumed you'd already have backed that up when you decided to upgrade the motherboard. – Bacon Bits Apr 26 '11 at 17:22
That's probably why Windows 7 does not support repair installs in the traditional sense. But 7 does allow to reinstall over an existing installation, preserving the filesystem. – unixman83 Apr 27 '11 at 14:59
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.