New motherboard/old disk drive

[DarrylJ]

Not exactly a hardware question, but before I make a mess of a working system....

I have a computer with an older m/b and CPU. We're running Win98SE (it's a gaming machine for my son).

I'd like to upgrade him to something faster. I have a new m/b, CPU and RAM ready to go, but I'm wondering what the implications are of just adding his current harddriveto the new system. Will the "old" operating system recognize the new m/b properly? Will I have to reinstall Windows in order to get the OS to recognise the new features of the new m/b, or will it do this automatically?

For example: the current system has a NIC card; the new one has an Ethernet interface on the m/b. If I plug in the old hard drive, will it get confused because there is no longer a NIC as a PCI card, or will it find the on-board Ethernet setup and make the adjustments?

In the past, it seems there's always been a new operating system to install and I've never just upgraded a motherboard without doing a full install of the OS at the same time. I have no idea of what to expect.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.
--
Darryl

 

[Liquidlen]

Although you can use the old drive & O/S ,it is a tedious bit of work and unless you are adept with Dos and have the time ,I would not bother.There is no advantage and you would still have old drivers and system files laying around just waiting to aggrivate you.You would be much further ahead to do a format and fresh install.
Since you have not started ,just back up any data you want to keep . Let us know how it works out.

 

[DarrylJ]

I suspected that was going to be the answer.

But, since I had just recently done a format and re-install of everything on the computer in question, I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't have to go through all that again.

Oh well. Nothing for it but to get started, I guess.

Thanks.
--
Darryl

 

[Skarn]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]
Liquidlen is right! Back up any precious data and go for the fresh install. It will most likely save you a bunch of misery in the future. Good luck.
[/FONT]