Windows Vista Hardware Upgrade

[Omegayellow]

Hi-

I had a PC running Vista Home Premium that I built about 1.5 years ago. My motherboard recently bit the dust, though. I purchased a new motherboard from Newegg, and was given a Core 2 Duo E6700 from a friend. I popped everything in, and Vista will just reboot in an infinite cycle. I need my programs and files- I run a business making websites and doing video work- I would be lost without all of my "stuff". I am currently booting the machine onto XP using an old 40GB Hard Drive. I can read the files, but again, I need the programs to come over. I am open to anything. I think using Virtual Machine 2007 might work, but I am unsure. I have the following at my disposal (The original board for my PC is dead and cannot be used)
*40 GB Hard Drives (I have one in with XP Pro, but I do have a couple more.
*An External USB Hard Drive (120 GB)
*The Original 750 GB Hard Drive in the computer before it died

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[Omegayellow]

Also, what would happen if I purchased the same model of motherboard that my old PC had. I have seen some in the model for sale on eBay- would this work? All of the other parts would be identical.

 

[Jonmor68]

Have you tried booting into safe mode? if you can, then install the drivers for the new motherboard and hopefully that will allow you to start normally.
You could also try a repair instalation if that fails.
You will need to phone Microsoft to reactivate Vista, just choose activate online now, which will fail, but will pop up a number for you to call.
I doubt the automated system will get you going, if you can select to speak to an human, then you can tell them your mb failed and you had to replace it. They are usually fairly accomadating.

 

[Omegayellow]

I've tried safe mode- no luck. It gives me a list of files being loaded, and then goes into its loop. I also tried using the repair utility- that did not work.

Any ideas?

 

[Jonmor68]

None that will save your programs, having tried the usual remedies. You may well have corupted files from when the motherboard died.
At this stage a new install is all I can think of, that will collect all your previous Vista instalation into a folder called Windows.old thereby saving your files which you can later access in that folder, but your programs will need to be reinstalled.
If you registered the programs you may be able to get a copy from the authors.