I want to rebuild my computer but keep my programs and OS, can I do it?

Question

I want to replace my motherboard, processor, and memory but I do not want to have to reboot my system and reinstall everything. I want to go from a gigabyte 939 ultra motherboard with an athlon 64+ 3000 processor to something more modern and up to speed. I plan on staying in the athlon brand, if that makes a difference. I don't want to have to reinstall windows, I don't want to have to reinstall my programs, I dont want to backup my files. I am keeping the same hard drive. Is it possible to do this?

Answer 1

yeah your spot on it will work as long as you don't mess with the hard drive but to be on the safe side i would back up your stuff just in case you mess something up in the process also make sure everything will A) fit in your case. B) is compatible with each other. and C) you have enough fans to cool everything along with a power supply that can handle everything. Good Luck.

Answer 2

yes, you will need to delete all of your drivers for you graphics card, motherboard, and processor, then just pop in your old hard drive in your new compy

Answer 3

You can do it.However I don't advise it.

When you put in your windowsXP cd go through the install. Right after you hit F-8 for the EULA it will ask you a second time to do a repair of windows. Hit yes or ok or R or whatever to do it. This will reinstall windows without deleting your files. You may have to have a floppy disk with harddrive controller drivers if windows doesn't see a harddrive. Just hit F-6 at the beginning of the install when it asks too.

However, by doing this you keep all the c**p you had from your previous version including drivers from the motherboard that could cause conflicts...in the least it's clutter.

Answer 4

You can't use the OS on the old HDD.You will have to reinstall your OS.

Why-in the process of installing your OS it looks for hardware since your old computer has different hardware he can not boot.

The easies way is to buy a second hard drive and install your OS on that and use your old one as a second HDD.

Answer 5

If you reuse you hard drive you have to do nothing just change the motherboard, memory ,cpu, video card  and turn it on everything will work as before except faster

after it is booted you can down load the new drivers. you can clean out all the old after your sure its all working

worse case it will boot in safe mode untill you get the new drives installed. I have done this many times for myself and friends. one thing though is that an old hard drive will become a bottle neck in the performance of your comp. you really need a 7200 rpm or better today so you could do as mentioned above and just put the os on a new HD and set the old as a slave