[SOLVED] How to prepare for motherboard failure

Recently a poster asked how they could utilize their hard drive after a motherboard failure. It got me to thinking, is there any way one could do a back up to prepare for such a scenario. The only thing i can think of is something like Windows 10 File History.
 
Solution
Recently a poster asked how they could utilize their hard drive after a motherboard failure. It got me to thinking, is there any way one could do a back up to prepare for such a scenario. The only thing i can think of is something like Windows 10 File History.
Get a second identical motherboard and keep it somewhere safe. When original board dies, replace with identical one. It may be necessary to reinstall some drivers and deal with broken windows activation. Other than that - it should be fine.
If you just want to access your user files, then none of this is necessary. Just connect the drive to any desktop pc as secondary drive and access your files.

Don't quite understand, how windows file history is going to help you.

JRock247

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Dec 22, 2011
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Sorry I am a little confused with your question. You want to know how you can utilise your hard drive after a mobo failure? Are you referring to drivers, etc if you swapped out the dead board for a different board?

Why would you not be able to re-use the same hard drive if a motherboard failed!? The hard drive will still be usable, providing the dead motherboard didn't some how take out your hard drive.
 
I'm a little confused as well.

If you cloned the hard drive.....you would have an exact copy of everything.....so you could do that as a backup.

....but if you had a motherboard failure....you would still have everything on your hard drive intact....so you wouldn't really need the backup.
 
Recently a poster asked how they could utilize their hard drive after a motherboard failure. It got me to thinking, is there any way one could do a back up to prepare for such a scenario. The only thing i can think of is something like Windows 10 File History.
Get a second identical motherboard and keep it somewhere safe. When original board dies, replace with identical one. It may be necessary to reinstall some drivers and deal with broken windows activation. Other than that - it should be fine.
If you just want to access your user files, then none of this is necessary. Just connect the drive to any desktop pc as secondary drive and access your files.

Don't quite understand, how windows file history is going to help you.
 
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Solution
Replace the board with the exact same one. Ive replaced my Asus Rampage 3 extreme board 3 times over 10 years, most recently about 2 years ago when my water block leaked onto it, without needing any driver updates or windows reactivation.
 
I'm a little confused as well.

If you cloned the hard drive.....you would have an exact copy of everything.....so you could do that as a backup.

....but if you had a motherboard failure....you would still have everything on your hard drive intact....so you wouldn't really need the backup.
My point is we backup hard drives, usually in case of a hdd/ssd failure or corruption, but that would be of little consequence in the case of a motherboard failure. Aside from having a duplicate motherboard available, it seems there is little one can do to prepare for such an occurrence.
 
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popatim

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Always have important files backed up. Run under the assumption that even your brand new top of the line drive will fail in the next 10 minutes and plan for how much data are you willing to lose; which equates to how often you should backup.