Swap current HDD with OS to new build

[fiend]

Current specs:
■Mobo: DFI LP DK X48-T2RSB PLUS LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX
■Proc: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8400
■Mem: OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2P10664GK
■HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
■OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

New build:
■Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
■Proc: Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930
■Mem: G.SKILL PI Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7T-6GBPI
■HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
■OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Am I going to be able to uninstall some system drivers (specifically HDD) and swap the drive?
Also will I be able to swap a Windows XP install from a couple year old Dell desktop into my current (top) build?

Let me know if anymore information is required.

Thanks in advance,

Eric

 

[hunter315]

Its highly unlikely that it will work, it wont have drivers for the motherboard chipset or onboard devices. In general if you change the motherboard in the system or move the HDD to a system with a different motherboard you will need to reinstall the OS.

 

[Proximon]

Well, you can call it drivers but it's really more basic than that. It's something called the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) that can only be installed with the OS. Similar to a driver but more welded to the operating system and hardware.

If you are successful at all it will be by running a "repair installation" but is not advisable.

 

[fiend]

Its highly unlikely that it will work, it wont have drivers for the motherboard chipset or onboard devices. In general if you change the motherboard in the system or move the HDD to a system with a different motherboard you will need to reinstall the OS.

First, thanks for the prompt reply. Secondly, I have done this before (but with XP) and when speaking to a PC technician I worked with at the time, he mentioned the main problem was, IIRC, the storage controller or drivers.

Also, Windows 7 during install doesn't have drivers for the chipset/onboard devices and provides native drivers for the initial install. Would Windows 7 not be able to do something similar in this context?

Well, you can call it drivers but it's really more basic than that. It's something called the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) that can only be installed with the OS. Similar to a driver but more welded to the operating system and hardware.

If you are successful at all it will be by running a "repair installation" but is not advisable.

Thanks for your reply, I have not heard of the HAL before. What is the worst-case scenario of a repair install in this situation?

 

[Proximon]

Depends on what you think is worse... an unstable system that keeps crashing at bad times or something that does not work at all?

It's remotely possible, I suppose, that something could get over-heated or over-volted or some such, but I've never heard of anything like that.

I guess the real worst case would be corruption of data on the disk... now that's a real possibility.

 

[Proximon]

It looks like a repair install in Win 7 triggers the activation... which would fail if your copy is OEM because you switched the MB
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[fiend]

Okay so I uninstalled the HDD drivers in device manager and threw it into the new rig without any issues. At first haha. I was getting *** performance in gaming and general use. I finally have my GPU behaving properly in gaming. I will definitely do a clean install but this allowed me to move data onto my new HDD before I need to do so. Would I repeat it again under the same circumstances? Probably because I'm on a strict time schedule with trying to get my old build out the door to a buyer. I probably wouldn't under different circumstances.

Validation also isn't an issue as I was running a pirated copy of Windows 7 before and couldn't figure out how to unpirate it when I got my MSDN subscription from my job. It did trigger validation to some extent but I think WAT is still removed in some fashion or another. It allowed me to type in my MSDN key so I'm happy.

Anyway, thanks for your help and feedback!

 

[fiend]

Best answer selected by fiend.

 

[Proximon]

Good to hear I have so many old HDs laying around that I can always boot up something for data transfer.

Hmmm ya the crap performance kinda goes back to the whole "burn something up" idea. Ever had a GPU die on you when you asked it to play some new demanding game?
Same kinda principle, you get some conflict and some odd continuous loop running in the background, stressing some part more than it should be stressed. CPU gets very preoccupied maybe.
I've just seen this sort of thing in the past, on admittedly older operating systems, and it makes me nervous
Especially now that so much of the BIOS is available to the OS or other software.