New mobo help!!!

[rhinoman7]

I just upgraded from a Soyo P4I 845PE Lite to a Soyo P4I 865PE Plus (Dragon 2). When I go into the BIOS, it recognizes all of my hardware (2 HDs and 2 DVD drives). When it goes to boot up into windows (I am using XP Home), it just gives me the message "Disk Error", and it attempts to boot up from a CD-ROM. I put my XP disk in, and it starts the install, but runs into a problem within the first couple of minutes, and my computer restarts.
First of all, shouldn't XP just boot up right away? I didn't change the hard drives at all, and the operation system is still installed on the HD. Is it necessary to re-install XP after changing mobos? If so, will I lose my other applications and data files from the HD?

 

[hygor]

When changing a peice of hardware as vital as a motherboard i would think it is best to reinstall windows... as xp sets itself up to work with your hardware... so if you change the mobo it will not be optimised and in this case looks like it wont even work... I changed keyboard once and had to reinstall windows... just because of the new features my keyboard had... and a keyboard is hardly the backbone of the pc that the motherboard is! So if I were you I would back up your HD somehow (maybe use your old mobo. or plug the hd into another puter ) and once that is done i would use your new mobo and do a fresh install!

 

[TrowaBarton]

New XP Security features

Another thing to remember is that XP has a new built in security feature that looks for piracy. If you switch out certain parts of your PC (MOBO being one of them), it will prompt you for re-activation of the software.

Technically what should of happened is - replace the mobo, reboot the machine... XP recognizes new hardware and installs etc. etc. and so on and so on... Thing I'm wondering though is ... did you make sure your other hardware on your machine was compatible with the MOBO? Cause you're not even getting windows to load.

I bet it's a compatibility issue

And as far as reinstalling windows because of a keyboard... WOW... don't think you really had to go that far! They're called drivers... and they're on a cd that came with your keyboard. =O) lol, jk

 

[ccohn2000]

If you change out your MB w/ XP Home, it won't run. It thinks you have a new computer because the major components have changed. I replaced a board this weekend, and I had the same crash at boot problem, and I have XP Pro. When I booted from CD I was fine, I just reformatted and went forward. You will lose ALL the info on the hard drive if you do that. You'll have to load your programs from scratch. That said, I got three defective MB in a row, that all caused disk errors similar to what you described, before I got one that worked. ( All were cheapo ECS boards ) I once had a Soyo Dragon board that I just couldn't get to run at the proper clock speed ( I returned and reinstalled twice too- cleared the CMOS and flashed the BIOS on both! It still thought I had a slower chip than I did.). I swapped it for an ABIT which came right up with no trouble at all. Sometimes they just don't like the rest of your system, even if it is all supposed to be compatible. It can be very frustrating, but keep on trying, success in the end is sweet!

 

[hygor]

Re: New XP Security features

And as far as reinstalling windows because of a keyboard... WOW... don't think you really had to go that far! They're called drivers... and they're on a cd that came with your keyboard. =O) lol, jk

It was extreme, I could boot windows and everything, but even with the drivers (yes i did install them) the new keyboard (with extra functionality) was causing windows to do some strange things... in the end i asked microsoft for tech support (its an ms keyboard) and they told me to reinstall as the way my xp was configured originally didnt support my keyboard! I thought it was overkill but it fixed the problem so I was happy to do it! looking back its kinda funny!