Did I just get lucky?

**Atodini** · February 10th, 2005, 02:14 PM

I am wondering whether there might be more to SP2 than I previously thought.

I will explain..

Customer machine, XP2 Pro SP2, ECS K7VZA Mobo, Duron 1300, 256 SDRAM, GF4 graphics, 40 gig hdd.

Comes in for repair - no boot.

A quick peek inside the box showed that numerous caps had bulged to the point of extinction, usual tests prove mobo dead.

Install new mobo (K7S5A - the closest I could find to the original), CPU fan and Antec PSU with otherwise all original parts.

Fire her up & set up BIOS options then on spec, just let her go expecting the usual blue screen entailing windows repair install - but it didn't happen!!!

Machine booted fine, albeit in 16 colours 640 x 480. It then set about installing automatically all the drivers for the new board (all SIS - the old board had a VIA chipset) including sound, LAN, usb, etc. No CD in the drive either!!!

On reboot all was back as it should be - wierd in the extreme. It made what I expected to be a long job into a very short & easy one!!

I did have a good hard look at the machine but could not find any sign of a backup copy of XP anywhere on the drive, neither any "hidden" partition (though as it's a generic machine built locally (not by us) this would be unlikely)

I have never had this happen before when replacing a mobo in XP. In fact, even when the chipsets were both the same, a repair install has often been necessary!!

I even carried out a virtually identical excercise a few months ago with similar mobos (many of the old K7VZA's are approaching the end of their useful lives) and had to do a repair install then, in fact the only difference I can find here was that SP2 was installed.

Not knowing too much about the history of this machine I wondered could it have once been used with an SIS chipset and just picked up on old existing drivers in the file system? The customer, however, is adamant that it was new when he bought it and that it has never before broken down so.....

Did I just get lucky? Or could there more to SP2 than I suspected??

John

**DiR[ëctory]** · February 10th, 2005, 02:19 PM

no.

**NooNoo** · February 10th, 2005, 02:37 PM

If the motherboard died in stages, it could well be that xp was running on its generic drivers - so putting a board in there that wasn't faulty just caused it to update to the drivers in the drivercache in the windows directory.

**Ya_know** · February 10th, 2005, 02:59 PM

I've not had the fortune to do this, but I've heard stories all around about how easy it can be to used a ghost image of one PC, and run it on another, or replace major hardware components, and it works like a charm.

I'm curious, did you have to reactivate the XP install?

**Atodini** · February 10th, 2005, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

If the motherboard died in stages, it could well be that xp was running on its generic drivers - so putting a board in there that wasn't faulty just caused it to update to the drivers in the drivercache in the windows directory.

That makes sense,

I never saw this machine before this morning but knowing the guy who built it, it could possibly have been on generic drivers from day 1! Far too many "builders" don't seem to install the mobo software if it all seems to work on the generics.

I did run the K7S5A motherboard install disc by the way - and all the updates I could find!!!

Oh, and the customer rang up about 10 minutes ago saying how he could not believe how fast it is now!!!

Anyway saved me a whole heap of time today!!

John

**Atodini** · February 10th, 2005, 03:05 PM

I'm curious, did you have to reactivate the XP install?

Nah it just kicked in and worked fine..

John

**the boss** · February 10th, 2005, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by Ya_know

I've not had the fortune to do this, but I've heard stories all around about how easy it can be to used a ghost image of one PC, and run it on another, or replace major hardware components, and it works like a charm.

I'm curious, did you have to reactivate the XP install?

working at the lower end of the food chain , I have had to replace many "budget" m/boards,
unfortunatly (or fortunatly!) most of my costomers seeem to own a copy of XP PRo* ,

most of the time , at least 90% , of the time , when replacing a m/b , you get a BSOD , the other 10% , xp loads , and searches for new hardware/drivers.

althouugh this is nice (easy) , i cannot guarrentee a restart , and advise them of this

oh **** * piracy ,,,i did,nt mean that/.

**Atodini** · February 10th, 2005, 06:52 PM

Yeah but this copy is legal..... COA stuck to the side of the case; though luckily this time i didn't need it...

Whilst I don't have a high opinion of this particular system builder I must give him credit for always building legal systems.

(always sources his software from us!!)

John

**rgharper** · February 10th, 2005, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by Atodini

Did I just get lucky? Or could there more to SP2 than I suspected??

John

Personally, I think it's 'more to Windows XP' in general than 'more to SP2' ... I've had to do a couple mobo swaps and it almost always works under Windows XP with few hassles when compared to other MS operating systems.

oh, sorry; mis-spellt "M$"