Is this a good idea?

[Sircoop]

I am running Windows XP Home, 1 CD Drive, 1 CDRW, and 2 120GB WD8 mbCache Hard drives.

Hard Drives are spilt into 5 drives, 1 of course is for OS only and the other 4 are MISC (Games etc..)

I am getting a new Motherboard, CPU, RAM, as well as a new video card.

Should I just replace the motherboard, Ram, and CPU and use the same operating system?

Or should I do a clean install? I just have soooo much stuff installed it would suck putting it all back on!

Sircoop

 

[nastyemu25]

it might depend on some of the other pci devices and such you have on your existing setup that will go into the new one

when you change motherboards you're gonna effectively screw up all your IRQ's etc and your OS is gonna have a hell of a time reassigning them. but this effect might be lessened since you're installing a new video card + other stuff anyway.

i would go with a fresh install of XP

 

[Sircoop]

I figured this would be the correct route.

I will have to take a complete inventory of all my programs and make sure they all get loaded again...BOO..

I think I am going to buy a new ATX Case and a new HD. Then make both my older dirves slaves and transfer most of the programs, files etc...This should help.

I currently have XP home, if I reinstall it, it will not give me any problems using the same CD Key right?

Sircoop

 

[nastyemu25]

nope, using the same key wont give you any trouble

 

[Nothinman]

Don't reinstall, just do a repair. And even if you did do a reinstall it would have nothing to do with IRQs, the only real reason I could see for it would be if the HAL or even some other driver was causing the machine to BSOD on bootup, but even that should be fixed with a repair without reinstallation.

 

[Smilin]

Sysprep your box, shut down, swap hardware and boot. You'll go through a minisetup and be back to where you were. It gets more complicated if you're using raid but otherwise this is the best of both worlds - new os without having to reload everything else.