As my Hard drive in the P4 died, I will upgrade the system. This will be a drawn out process as I dont have the funds to buy everything at once.
So I will replace the hard drive first and soon.

My question is I know when i buy a new I5 mother board and a CPU to go with it windows XP most likely wont work. But Id like to get the thing running and crunching untill I can get the other componets. So Is it just swapping out the old drive and putting the new one in and then putting win XP OS on it. Or is it a tad bit more involved?

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[/quote]

Old James

XP can be fussy when swapping a drive from an old cpu/motherboard to a new one, and other times it will work without any problem.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

As my Hard drive in the P4 died, I will upgrade the system. This will be a drawn out process as I dont have the funds to buy everything at once.
So I will replace the hard drive first and soon.

My question is I know when i buy a new I5 mother board and a CPU to go with it windows XP most likely wont work. But Id like to get the thing running and crunching untill I can get the other componets. So Is it just swapping out the old drive and putting the new one in and then putting win XP OS on it. Or is it a tad bit more involved?

For now, add the new drive and load XP. Do the Windows Update dance. Several times....LOL. Depending on how many times your copy has been registered, you might have to phone home for a new validation code. If you do, be sure to make note of it somewhere for safekeeping.
Then reload all your programs, etc.

When you change out the mobo and processor, XP should still be good to go, but might ask you to register again due to the major hardware changes. Again, you may have to phone in for a new registration code.

Hope it goes smoothly for you.

Meow!

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Thanks Rob and Mark. I have only reformatted once on the P4 so maybe that will be ok to go.

Mark when you say phone home do you mean actually using a phone or the E-mail thing?

I have only swapped out memory and a 3.5 disc drive so all this is new to me.
Im used to using a hammer, duct tape and pump pliers to fix stuff:)

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[/quote]

Old James

he means actually calling the number that XP provides to reregister your OS. XP thinks you've done a new install when you change hardware.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Thanks Rob and Mark. I have only reformatted once on the P4 so maybe that will be ok to go.

Mark when you say phone home do you mean actually using a phone or the E-mail thing?

I have only swapped out memory and a 3.5 disc drive so all this is new to me.
Im used to using a hammer, duct tape and pump pliers to fix stuff:)

The only time I had to do it, there was a phone number to call to get a new code.

And, you might need some smaller tools for this job...LOL.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

XP can be fussy when swapping a drive from an old cpu/motherboard to a new one, and other times it will work without any problem.

This is only when you have a working drive and you swap motherboards. Not all motherboards used the same vendor when it comes to IDE/SATA controllers (what the HDD lives on) used on the motherboard.

As such when the working version of Windows on that drive starts loading the drivers for the old motherboard, it can happen that these drivers no longer work as the IDE/SATA controllers use a different vendor on the new motherboard than what the old motherboard was using. And then you'll have a 0x7B STOP error on a BSOD which amongst other things will blurb "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem."

Therefore, before you swap motherboards, the advice on Windows XP is to go into the device manager and install the default Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers, before shutting down and swapping the motherboards over, then install the new drivers for that motherboard as soon as possible.

The OP doesn't have a working drive, but a new drive. He won't have this problem. :-)

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Is it always that easy?

I have a small box lying on my shelf containing a Windows Genuine Advantage SP2 Home Edition CD-ROM which I ordered and then received express directly from the United States. Really magnificent service there. I have not installed from it too many times though, though since most of my installations (as well as problems) are related to Windows XP Professional.

But it will not take the activation code which comes along with the box. For Windows XP Professional, I had to copy my best Windows directory to other discs as well as partitions in the hope of being able to boot to that disc or partition.

The easiest way of administering a 500 GB, a 1 TB, or the most recent 2 TB discs is to copy an existing Windows directory which already has been activated and use this structure as a basis or foundation. In my example, this directory is almost 11 GB in size and probably remembers several things about earlier Microsoft Office installations as well. It will have to be reduced in size, but except for that there are not to much to complain about.

Definitely you are going to need a large hard disc in order to handle these things. Also you will need to have the time at cleaning up all the things that are not necessary, including possible duplicates of the files and directories.

In order to get everything up and running, I guess you will need to have to go through the process of booting up in safe mode (and possibly anything between) before being able to resume normal service again. This is particularly important if you either are not sure what you have or perhaps do not know how things should be working when trying to integrate several different things into each other as a whole.

XP thinks you've done a new install when you change hardware.

James isn't changing hardware, he's changing the actual hard drive as his old drive died, so any installation of XP on it is a clean brand spanking new installation.

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XP thinks you've done a new install when you change hardware.

James isn't changing hardware, he's changing the actual hard drive as his old drive died, so any installation of XP on it is a clean brand spanking new installation.

Yes, but he talks about upgrading the mobo and CPU at a later date, so he will be dealing with the hardware change issues, if any, at that time.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Thanks for the replys. I will just put in the hard drive for now and that wont be for a week or two. ( I have to buy one first ) I will do one step at a time.

I will keep you all informed as to what goes on.

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[/quote]

Old James

Thanks for the replys. I will just put in the hard drive for now and that wont be for a week or two. ( I have to buy one first ) I will do one step at a time.

I will keep you all informed as to what goes on.

Yup. If you run into any snags, you know where to find us...LOL.
And I might mention ahead of time. I just did 3 new XP Pro installations in the last couple of weeks. Windows update might be fukayed until you manually download and install a newer version of Windows Update Agent due to a change in protocols on the MS update servers.

If you run into that, I can either find the link again, or email you the file I used for 32bit XP Pro.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Yes, but he talks about upgrading the mobo and CPU at a later date, so he will be dealing with the hardware change issues, if any, at that time.

Depends on what kind of drive James gets to replace his broken drive:

Most P4 motherboards only got IDE controllers, if there are SATA controllers on it, they are SATA 1.5Gb/s, which mean that:

1. If it's an IDE drive, then he'll have to look very hard for a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge motherboard that still has IDE controllers. In this case he'll either have to opt for an IDE controller card run from a PCI or PCI-E slot, or to just buy another new SATA 3Gb/s or SATA 6Gb/s hard drive.

2. If it's already a SATA drive, he may have trouble running it on his older motherboard as not all older P4 motherboards have SATA controllers, and those that do run at SATA 1.5Gb/s only.
Note: Not all SATA 3GB/s drives can be jumpered to run at the slower speed, check that before buying the drive! SATA 6GB/s drives are only backward compatible with SATA 3GB/s, not with SATA 1.5Gb/s.

If he manages to go IDE drive and find a motherboard that still can run one of those, or otherwise run it with a controller card, He can follow the advice I've given in the previous post about changing to default drivers prior to shut-down.

If it's a SATA hard drive (doesn't matter which version), it doesn't matter for drivers. These will pick right up after changing to the new motherboard.

But even then, that's all moot as Windows XP is finicky about a big change with replacing the motherboard, CPU, RAM and probably graphics card. You'll again be looking at a reformat of the drive and complete Windows reinstallation just to be sure no older drivers are lingering in the background, and that Windows HAL recognizes all the new hardware and the new multi-core CPU. His present P4 is a single core CPU, so Windows will be installed in Uni Processor mode (just one core).

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One quick word of advice when you swap out the motherboard/cpu. Run the driver installation CD/install all the drivers for your new board on the old system BEFORE you change the board. WinXP is less cranky when it finds new devices and the drivers are already there.

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When you change out the mobo and processor, XP should still be good to go,

That's only true if the chip set on the new mother board is 100% compatible with the old one...

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I just double-checked. XP Pro 32-bit will run all six cores of a Phenom II without complaining.

I don't have a multi-core XP Home machine, so I can't double-check and my memory isn't what it used to be. I *believe* I recall that two of my four core machines ran XP Home 32, using all four cores, without any problem.

I just double-checked. XP Pro 32-bit will run all six cores of a Phenom II without complaining.

I don't have a multi-core XP Home machine, so I can't double-check and my memory isn't what it used to be. I *believe* I recall that two of my four core machines ran XP Home 32, using all four cores, without any problem.

XP home is limited to just one physical CPU, but it supports all the cores in it...
XP Proffesional supports up to 2 physical CPUs (and all their cores, offcourse)
Vista, and 7 in Home/Home Premium versions are also limited to 1 physical CPU, you need Bussines (or higher versions) to use more than one CPU (Im not sure how many) but in all the versions all the cores (of the recognized CPUs) will be used.

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I just double-checked. XP Pro 32-bit will run all six cores of a Phenom II without complaining.

I don't have a multi-core XP Home machine, so I can't double-check and my memory isn't what it used to be. I *believe* I recall that two of my four core machines ran XP Home 32, using all four cores, without any problem.

XP home is limited to just one physical CPU, but it supports all the cores in it...
XP Proffesional supports up to 2 physical CPUs (and all their cores, offcourse)
Vista, and 7 in Home/Home Premium versions are also limited to 1 physical CPU, you need Bussines (or higher versions) to use more than one CPU (Im not sure how many) but in all the versions all the cores (of the recognized CPUs) will be used.

Agreed. Windows 2000 was licenced by virtual core: so Windows 2000 Professional, with a 2-CPU limit, wouldn't get full usage out of even a single quad-core CPU.

But Windows 2000 was the last OS licenced like that. Everything from XP upwards is licenced by physical CPU package, no matter how many cores are inside that package. Home versions only support 1 CPU, business/professional versions are needed for dual physical CPUs.

There may be a problem .......

talking rubbish on the forum....
Well, that sorts that out, thank`s.

One quick word of advice when you swap out the motherboard/cpu. Run the driver installation CD/install all the drivers for your new board on the old system BEFORE you change the board. WinXP is less cranky when it finds new devices and the drivers are already there.

That works if the installer doesn't run a hardware check first.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope