Can I replace motherboard without reinstalling Win2K AS?

[jennapp]

I desperately need a faster CPU and more RAM for my Pentium 166 96MB server. However, rebuilding the OS and services would be days and days of work. Is it possible to shutdown, replace the MoBo and RAM, and reboot relatively painlessly (and safely, of course!)

The OS is Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and it is an Active Directory master.

Thanks!

[ReddDogg]

It is possible to do this. If you do this, I would definately back everything up (registry, all info on system) before trying it. Basically, the conflicts you could potentially have are going to be in the device manager, and if that is the case, it will be the residue of the old motherboard and chipset and such. The ram won't make a difference, just the motherboard. It might work to just swap parts, and then turn on, and let the auto detect figure out what changed. If it does give you any conflicts, the next thing you would have to do is go into device manager and remove the old motherboard and components on the motherboard. After doing that, it should work, but no garauntee... never is a garauntee with microsoft products.

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Joe Redd
MCP

[Paleo Pete]

It can be done, and sometimes will work, but I always recommend a complete format and reinstall when swapping motherboards, due to the leftover "residue" from the old board, as Redd quite nicely put it.

Very often you'll have more trouble than you want to deal with, and in some cases it might not even boot. It's not very common that it won't boot though. Usually Windows will spend about 45 minutes adding software for the new hardware, and you'll spend 2 weeks removing leftover files, and fighting error messages. I did it 3 months ago, and left the old OS just to see. It worked, but it was more headache then I wanted to deal with. It took me about 3 hours to decide to format.

As I said, I strongly recommend you bite the bullet and format/reinstall if you plan to swap motherboards.

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

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