windows7 not working after motherboard change

chopperreid

My motherboard packed in and i changed it. when i went to start it up it said i had to repair windows. i ran the automatic repair but it couldn't repair it. i don't have a disk

Overheal

I'm assuming this is an OEM licensed version of Windows 7 then?

ricman

Try f8 safe mode,vga, 720x576 resolution, its because you need the mobo drivers for windows 7 ,did you not get a driver disk with the mobo. what mobo is it.eg asus 1245xt ,model no ?
YOU COULD use a linux live cd ,install it ,,use browser to download the drivers.is the cpu the same.

PogMoThoin

Thats if Windows lets You boot after detecting the board change

ricman

you can run mint linux from cdrom, and install it to harddisk ,it should load the mobo
drivers automatically.

JonathanAnon

Windows 7 may not boot at all if you have installed a very different board.. when I replace a board, I usually try to replace with exactly the same type of board to avoid this type of error. If you cant get in to safe mode, then you will need the CD to reload.. alternatively, could you bring back the board you got and swop it for something similar to the board that you have previously?

Capt'n Midnight

ricman wrote: »

you can run mint linux from cdrom, and install it to harddisk ,it should load the mobo
drivers automatically.

please read the charter about advocating stuff before being requested

Capt'n Midnight

older versions of windows NT-XP would almost invariably blue screen if motherboard chipset or hard drive controller was changed, even for a very similar one in the same family.


pre-installed OEM windows is only licensed for the motherboard it was supplied with, except if the motherboard was replaced under warranty by the original supplier, windows OEM licenses suck big time but they are far cheaper than retail licenses

there is a rescue cd for VISTA of about 113 MB , can't remember if there is a windows 7 one either

drivers can be down loaded from the manufacturers web site but, you may need media, may be a repair partition on the hard drive or disk image

ricman

IF he has no cd version of win7 ,the easiest thing for now is to install linux, mint is a newbie friendly version.its free ,he could use it to browse the web, and download the drivers he needs ,copy em to a cdr or usb key.
i am not getting paid to advertise linux.
theres other ways to get round this, i wont mention em, cos its against boards forum rules.
if you know of any other free to download os that can be installed on a cdr ,run as a livecd from cdrom please post here.one that can be use by a non tech expert.
use imgburn free program to burn the linux iso to cdr.
http://www.ntfs.com/
you can get activebootdisk demo here ,its a mini livecd version of vista ,works on any pc, but it has no webrowser.ten day demo version.
you install program on pc1 , make cdimage, then run it on the pc with the new mobo.SET bios cd= device o, cd= 1st boot device.From bios,advanced options,boot options.

Fysh

ricman wrote: »

IF he has no cd version of win7 ,the easiest thing for now is to install linux, mint is a newbie friendly version.its free ,he could use it to browse the web, and download the drivers he needs ,copy em to a cdr or usb key.
i am not getting paid to advertise linux.
theres other ways to get round this, i wont mention em, cos its against boards forum rules.
if you know of any other free to download os that can be installed on a cdr ,run as a livecd from cdrom please post here.one that can be use by a non tech expert.
use imgburn free program to burn the linux iso to cdr.
http://www.ntfs.com/
you can get activebootdisk demo here ,its a mini livecd version of vista ,works on any pc, but it has no webrowser.ten day demo version.
you install program on pc1 , make cdimage, then run it on the pc with the new mobo.SET bios cd= device o, cd= 1st boot device.From bios,advanced options,boot options.

You're missing the point - Mint Linux may well be new-user friendly and run on everything from a brand new Core i7 workstation to your nan's toaster, but it is not a method for fixing the problem affecting the OP's Windows installation. Thus telling the user to download, burn and install Mint Linux is an unhelpful suggestion and a pretty clear case of advocacy, unless you're actually suggesting that they do something else entirely.

The point at which your suggestion is acceptable is when the OP says "Right, I've had enough, my Windows install is non-recoverably borked and the only way to get it up and running again is to buy a new licence and media. I don't want to do this. What alternative operating systems would people recommend I try?".

ricman

WELL i suggest if this is his only pc, install run linux or some other free os until he can makes up his mind .I SUGGEST buy an identical mobo from
the mobo he had be4 so theres no need to upgrade the os or buy another windows disk.I PRESUME you could buy it on ebay or in a pc shop or online .ie .OR go to a netcafe and shop from there.
I was not aware that advising someone to use a free os temporarily would be against the rules. no more than saying you can go to a shop and legally buy a reciever that enables you to watch bbc,itv,c4 from satellite because you live in a cottage where cable tv is not avaidable .
You could sell the new motherboard on adverts.ie .

JonathanAnon

What model board was in the PC to begin with, and what model have you put in it now?

chopperreid

Hi all and thanks for yer replies. I'll try and give ye all the info ye need and what i have done so far.
The motherboard i had was Gigabyte 945GZM-S3 rev.3 changed to Gigabyte M68M-S2P rev.1.0
As regards windows 7, i had Vista OEM orginally installed in the desktop, my girlfriend got windows7 for her lap top and i put it on my desktop, i have two harddrives and have reinstalled windows7 on one harddrive which was my backup one and have used the disk to try and repair windows7 on the orginal harddrive but no success.I have tried to restore to previous saved point,installed disk drivers and tried every option on F8. The reason i would like to use the orginal harddrive is that it has all my favourite pages saved and a lot of programs i use.
Also if anyone has any ideas about ddr2's for my new motherboard, i was using 2 1g corsair 1024mb 1066mhz 5-5-5-15 2.1v on the old one but the new mother board only allows for 1.8v and no adjustment so i can only use one of the ddrs. Is the new motherboard crap?

Overheal

No the motherboard isnt the problem, its the License.

OEM licenses latch on to motherboards. They are only designed for use on 1 computer, ever. Whereas a retail version (which is of course, more expensive) Is good for 1 installation of the OS at a time, on any hardware you fancy.

thats your problem, in a nutshell I believe. You would need to talk to Microsoft about detaching the license from the original motherboard if its even possible

Naikon

DRM at it's finest...

If you can't consider a move to less draconian Operating Systems now that Microsoft has declared your licence basically void, I suggest you buy a new licence.

Fysh

*sigh*

Gosh, it's good that there aren't people out there being irritating advocates and giving Linux a bad name. I mean, it'd be terrible for a range of quite decent if initially complex operating systems to get a bad name based purely on the inability of a few forum posters to grasp the idea that not everyone wants to hear from you, continuously, about how they should drop Windows and move to Linux.

Anyway.

Back to the OP - looking at Gigabyte's website, I think this is your original motherboard, and this is your new motherboard.

If those are the correct models, it's not surprising your Windows install has crapped out. The old board had an Intel chipset and processor, whereas the new board has a Nvidia chipset and an AMD processor. I've never tried switching a Windows install from different motherboards, processor architecture and manufacturer before, but the only sane way to go about it would be to take backups, uninstall all drivers, switch the hardware, install the new drivers and test the system. Even at that, such a change would have a seriously high probability of failure.

Realistically, your options are:

• return your new motherboard & processor, and try to exchange it for a new board of the same model as your original. This isn't going to be easy, and isn't a good idea anyway because a new board of the same model will likely have been sitting on a shelf for a good while.
• keep your new hardware and use the fresh Windows 7 install, paying for a licence if you don't already have one.
• keep your new hardware and talk to your computer's original vendor, asking them if they'll let you transfer your original Vista OEM licence to the new board (almost no chance of succeeding, but it's an option you could try).

In terms of retrieving data from your old install, you can get at some of your userdata by navigating through the drive, but you won't be able to get at all of it.

You could also hook up the old drive, boot into your working Windows 7 install, and try to follow these instructions on creating a Virtual Hard Drive from your old installation - there's a small chance it might work, and if you can do that you can then get into your old OS install to migrate your old user account and import that back into your new OS.

JonathanAnon

Assuming that your PC is out of warranty if you bought a new board yourself then yeah?

Capt'n Midnight

A full retail license allows you to install on any one machine at a time.

It's only the far cheaper OEM license that has major restrictions, and by moving it to a different motherboard the customer had voided the license agreement. Back in the day CPM license would expire after 12 years and other OS's require additional costs per core. People forget that Microsoft has expanded into some Unix / mainframe territory by offering cheaper licenses.



The long and the short of it is that this is the windows forum and the charter is quite specific about the necessity of licenses.



Yes linux live CD's are handy for downloading drivers and restoring individual files. But about as useful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to installing drivers on a non-booting windows system.



right guys back on topic !

Capt'n Midnight

Naikon's post deleted because while the OEM windows license sucks you still have to agree to it's terms and conditions to use windows.


And I hope everyone knows at this stage that a linux* live CD means that if you use an ethernet cable instead of wireless you can probably be surfing the interweb / retrieving documents and basic housekeeping within a few minutes.


* BeOS / BSD / opensolaris etc.

Overheal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

a chocolate teapot

o_o


Want.

Truly the best way to view licenses is you pay Full Price for the Retail License; and a Discounted Price for the OEM/Builder's License. Buying a Retail License should not be considered a punitive expense; It is not Twice as expensive as OEM per say: its just full price.

chopperreid

i have no problem changing my OS but have always been worried about compatibility and i would welcome suggestions on which is the best OS.I use 3 dongle. pc is out of warranty.

I know exactly how to transfer Windows from one motherboard to another. I've done it on many occasions and if it's done properly it usually works. But as we're dealing with an OEM licence here I'm saying nothing.

Naikon

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Naikon's post deleted because while the OEM windows license sucks you still have to agree to it's terms and conditions to use windows.


And I hope everyone knows at this stage that a linux* live CD means that if you use an ethernet cable instead of wireless you can probably be surfing the interweb / retrieving documents and basic housekeeping within a few minutes.


* BeOS / BSD / opensolaris etc.

Was my post too offensive? I know my tone might annoy some people on this thread, but I am not trying to be an asshole. It's a bit of a shame the paying OP is now licenceless. Apologies for any offence caused. I will keep this in mind for any future posts to the Windows forum. Mistakes will be made.

Capt'n Midnight

As someone suggested on a different thread there is always windows 2008 trial version. This can be kept running for 240 days.

JonathanAnon

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's only the far cheaper OEM license that has major restrictions, and by moving it to a different motherboard the customer had voided the license agreement. Back in the day CPM license would expire after 12 years and other OS's require additional costs per core. People forget that Microsoft has expanded into some Unix / mainframe territory by offering cheaper licenses.

But if he finds the same board and installs that in the PC he would be grand though (right?). I had a PC before that the board was gone in ... and luckily my local computer wholesaler happened to have a very similar board (same company, very similar model). Installed it and it booted fine without any issues. This was of particular interest to my client, rather than reinstall windows, as he had .... how would you say it.... software installed that he had "lost" the original install CDs for...

interesting discussion though.

JonathanAnon

JonathanAnon wrote: »

But if he finds the same board and installs that in the PC he would be grand though (right?). I had a PC before that the board was gone in ... and luckily my local computer wholesaler happened to have a very similar board (same company, very similar model). Installed it and it booted fine without any issues. This was of particular interest to my client, rather than reinstall windows, as he had .... how would you say it.... software installed that he had "lost" the original install CDs for...

interesting discussion though.

Another board with the same chipset and southbridge will work but it will need to detect and install all of the devices again. Alternatively, if the hard disk is installed to a PCI IDE, SATA or SCSI interface card then you can technically move it to whatever machine you like once you move the interface card too. Would still require all devices to be re-enumerated though.

Again, this doesn't take any licencing restrictions into account.

ricman

YEAH, if he buys the same board ,it,ll just work as be4, no need to reinstall windows or reinstall drivers.
i ,m not sure if 3 modem has drivers ,or install cd for linux .i,m presuming chipset,cpu is the same as the old one.

chopperreid

I would like to take buying a new motherboard or exchanging the new one i bought out of the equatation because the first thing i asked them was did they have my old one in stock which they didn't .
I have not problems changing OS system if i can't rescue the hardrive because i running windows 7 on my backup hard drive, my concern there is compatability.

chopperreid

Karsini wrote: »

Another board with the same chipset and southbridge will work but it will need to detect and install all of the devices again. Alternatively, if the hard disk is installed to a PCI IDE, SATA or SCSI interface card then you can technically move it to whatever machine you like once you move the interface card too. Would still require all devices to be re-enumerated though.

Again, this doesn't take any licencing restrictions into account.

you will have to dumb that down a bit mate

Fysh

Karsini wrote: »

Another board with the same chipset and southbridge will work but it will need to detect and install all of the devices again. Alternatively, if the hard disk is installed to a PCI IDE, SATA or SCSI interface card then you can technically move it to whatever machine you like once you move the interface card too. Would still require all devices to be re-enumerated though.

Again, this doesn't take any licencing restrictions into account.

OP:

The above translates roughly as "if the components of the new board are sufficiently close to those of the old board, you can technically move the install between them. Alternatively, if you use a PCI adapter for your hard drive you could move the hard drive and adapter to any new board you like."

It's important to note that being able to technically do it does not mean that your original licence entitles you to do it. So if your Windows 7 licence was an upgrade applied to uour old Vista OEM licence, it is tied to your old dead motherboard and you can't legally move it to your new board.

ALSO:

I think you're confused by the talk of transferring licences. "Running Windows 7 on your backup drive" with the new board has the same licence issues as fixing your old Windows 7 install on the new board - ie you're not allowed to do either with an upgraded OEM licence. Thus if you're considering moving to another OS as an alternative to buying a new licence for Win7 on your new board, you'd have to get rid of the installation on your backup drive as well.

chopperreid

Neither windows 7 on hard drives are OEM and have tried using the retail win7 to repair orginal OS but to no avail. I don't have an pci adapter .

Capt'n Midnight

that's weird

windows 7 shouldn't need motherboard drivers for an install should it ?
double check the manufacturers site for chipset / hard drive controller (sata) drivers in case it's just that simple

if somehow the registry got corrupted along the way then a repair won't solve everything

at that stage try to install to a different folder on the same partition or on another hard drive , that way if it installs then you know it was a problem with an inherited setting from the old windows install, yes you would have to reinstall every application again unless you had a previous backup (and the backup would probably fallover too when it restored settings for old motherboard )

Cryos

Sounds like its booting into WinRE to look at startup options.

When it gets to the point where it cannot repair it should have an option like the one below:


if so can you click to see the diagnostic information, it will tell you exactly whats wrong.

It shouldnt be a driver related issue, unless you installed previously when your HD controler was set to AHCI or another mode.

Reverend Willie

Fysh wrote: »

You're missing the point - Mint Linux may well be new-user friendly and run on everything from a brand new Core i7 workstation to your nan's toaster, but it is not a method for fixing the problem affecting the OP's Windows installation. Thus telling the user to download, burn and install Mint Linux is an unhelpful suggestion and a pretty clear case of advocacy, unless you're actually suggesting that they do something else entirely.

The point at which your suggestion is acceptable is when the OP says "Right, I've had enough, my Windows install is non-recoverably borked and the only way to get it up and running again is to buy a new licence and media. I don't want to do this. What alternative operating systems would people recommend I try?".

I disagree installing Linux Mint fixed all my Windows Problems.

Capt'n Midnight

Reverend Willie wrote: »

I disagree installing Linux Mint fixed all my Windows Problems.

Welcome to Windows - please read the charter about advocating alternatives before being asked ,
as already posted on this thread :mad:

Cuddlesworth

If you could get your hard-drive to boot up on a similar machine hardware wise to your old system you could run a sysprep command to strip it back to a base install. It would transfer to any other machine with ease then. But I don't believe there is any easy way to do it to the drive as a external.

jimmycrackcorm

When I've had issues I'd simply install another windows 7 along side the original install ( not upgrade). It's not such a big deal to get most applications back up and running again.