Motherboard Change; Can Hardware Profiles move W2K to new hardware?
Lee Kingston
a major hardware upgrade, for example, a change of motherboards from
one chipset to another. And Microsoft provides no obvious menu tools
in Windows for this task. Can the Hardware Profiles feature be used
to assist?
To get to Hardware Profiles: Start > Settings > Control Panel >
System > Hardware > Hardware Profiles
To adapt an existing installation of Win2000 to new hardware, will
this procedure work?:
1. Highlight the current hardware profile and rename it
"OldMotherboard".
2. Create a copy of OldMotherboard and name it "OldMotherboard Copy".
(This is done in order to get the hardware profile selection menu at
startup.) There are now two profiles; "OldMotherboard" and
"OldMotherboard Copy". These are profiles for the existing (old)
hardware.
3. Create a second copy of OldMotherboard and rename it
"NewMotherboard". This will be the working profile for the new
hardware configuration.
4. Click Properties; For all profiles, select "Always include this
profile as an option when Windows starts".
5. Reboot. At the screen presenting Hardware Profiles at startup,
select the profile "NewMotherboard". Windows boots with the
NewMotherboard profile (which is currently no different than the
OldMotherboard profile).
6. Now running in the NewMotherboard profile, we need to [disable?
uninstall? or?] from the NewMotherboard profile, all oldmotherboard
devices that will not exist in the new hardware configuration.
Devices that carry forward from the old build to the new build would
be left unchanged.
Q: Now, how should this old hardware removal from the NewMotherboard
profile be done?
a) Device Manager > Doubleclick device for Properties > Select "Do
not use this device in the current hardware profile (disable)"?
b) Device Manager > Right-click device > Uninstall?
c) Boot into Safe Mode first before disabling or uninstalling
devices?
d) Other?
Continue procedure:
7. Do not reboot between device removals. Do all removals in one
operation before rebooting.
8. After all old hardware devices are removed in the NewHardware
profile, shutdown the PC.
9. Physically remove the old motherboard and other old hardware.
10. Install the new motherboard and other new hardware. The physical
hardware upgrade is now complete.
11. Turn on the PC. When starting to first boot into Windows, at the
Hardware Profiles selection screen, select the profile
"NewMotherboard" (the profile without any old hardware).
Q: Now, the question is what happens here?
Ideally, because all old hardware devices are removed from the
profile, there are no old-new hardware device/driver conflicts.
Ideally, Windows plug and play detects the new hardware and starts the
Found New Hardware wizard. Ideally, the user loads drivers for the
new hardware, configures new device properties and settings, and
everthing works great like a fresh Windows install.
Continue procedure:
12. Create a copy of the profile "NewMotherboard" and rename it
"NewMotherboard Copy". This gives the user a backup profile if ever
needed.
13. If there is no chance that the old hardware will ever be used
again, then the hardware profiles "OldMotherboard" and "OldMotherboard
Copy" can be deleted.
Ideally, this procedure could be used not just for hardware changes on
one PC, but also any situation where a boot hard drive is moved from
one PC to another, when each PC has different hardware.
Well, that was a nice visit to dreamland. It couldn't be that easy,
or could it?. What's missing? Or will it really work?
How to easily and safely move an existing Windows installation to new
hardware is a common problem. I see that question asked regularly in
a lot of forums. I think a procedure involving Hardware Profiles
would be the best solution. Using a Hardware Profile is
non-destructive, simple, quick, and safe compared to other options
(compare to: In-place upgrade; deleting the enum key; deleting all
devices in device manager; SysPrep; and the dreaded complete reinstall
of Windows and applications).
All feedback on this is appreciated. Thanks.
Bjorn Landemoo
This MS Knowledge Base article describes the recommended method:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q249694
Best regards
Bjorn
--
Bjorn Landemoo - bj...@landemoo.com - http://landemoo.com/
Microsoft MVP - Windows NT/2000
Lee Kingston
I guess I could have included that procedure on the list of "compare
to" options, but it addresses a different situation. Q249694 is an
involved procedure that moves an installation of Windows from a source
PC to a destination PC, with Windows already installed on the
destination PC. The procedure requires backup media. The system
state component drive letters, HAL, etc. must be the same on both
source and destination PCs, and on top of everything, you still have
to do an in-place upgrade if the source/destination hardware is
different. The in-place upgrade requires reinstallation of Windows
service packs and updates.
The situations I'm concerned with are: 1) someone wanting to change
motherboards (with different chipsets) and other hardware on a single
PC, leaving the existing hard drive and installation of Windows2000
intact (avoiding reinstallation of Windows, applications, service
packs, updates, etc.), and 2) someone wanting to remove a hard drive
from one PC (with Windows and applications installed) then install it
in another PC having different hardware. The last situation would
also include the user with a removable hard drive (Dataport, etc.)
that wants to run the same hard drive in several PCs, with each PC
having different motherboards and other hardware.
It may seem a lot to ask for Windows to easily adapt in those
situations, but those situations are extremely common. Windows needs
a feature specifically built-in for the task. Pending a future
version of Windows with such a "selling point" built-in (hint to
Microsoft), I think that a method involving Hardware Profiles could
provide the solution now.
The question is, will what I've described actually work?
Bjorn Landemoo <bj...@landemoo.com> wrote in message news:<c2vd5u0349u277hur...@4ax.com>...
Bjorn Landemoo
>It may seem a lot to ask for Windows to easily adapt in those
>situations
Lee
I think that you are asking a bit too much. It is troublesome enough to at
all install Win2000 on some hardware.
>
>The question is, will what I've described actually work?
My guess, and this is a guess, is that you will get problems when first
trying to boot the new computer, since many essential devices will be
disabled or removed. Especially hard disk adapter drivers, that might
depend on the chipset, comes to mind.
Perhaps PnP can solve this, but probably, an in-place upgrade is needed, to
detect all hardware.
The only method to get an answer to your question is to test it.
Lee Kingston
I just finished upgrading two systems, and the hardware profiles
procedure worked perfectly. There were no Windows stop errors or
other problems of any kind; (not one BSOD).
OS: Windows2000 Pro with SP2 and all updates current
Old Hardware: MSI K7Pro (AMD 750 chipset), AMD Athlon 600 CPU, Maxtor
DM+40 HDD (ATA-33/66)
New Hardware: MSI K7T266 Pro2 (VIA KT266A chipset), AMD Athlon XP
1800+, Maxtor D740X HDD (ATA-100/133)
There are two major hardware differences - 1) motherboard chipset, and
2) hard drive protocol. Updated files in SP2 provide all needed
drivers. With SP2 installed (which contains VIA chipset drivers), the
VIA 4-in-1's are not needed. (After everything is up and running, if
compelled to install something more from VIA, then install only the
VIA .inf file.)
Procedure summary: (in this case, the new ATA-100/133 HDD cannot be
run on the old ATA-66 motherboard)
1. In the old system, copy the existing hardware profile and load
generic Microsoft drivers for the mass storage controller and other
hardware that is changing. Name this profile; e.g. "Generic Hardware"
2. Copy the generic profile to create a Hardware Profile for the new
system. Name this profile; e.g. "NewMotherboard".
3. In the old system, go to Device Manager and print a "System
Resource Report". (This will be needed later to tell Windows where to
find drivers.)
4. Disable all non-essential programs that run at startup. Backup
the old system files.
5. Using DriveImage or Ghost, create an image of the old system hard
drive. Image to a 2nd hard drive that can run on both old and new
PCs. (In this example, this step is needed because the new hard drive
cannot be run on the old motherboard. If the new HDD could be run on
the old motherboard, then a disk-to-disk copy could be done, or an
image could be copied to a smaller second or third partition on the
new HDD).
6. Build the new system. Select "PnP aware OS" in new system BIOS.
7. Run DriveImage or Ghost from diskette, and restore the old HDD
image to the new HDD.
8. Boot into Windows and enter Safe Mode.
9. When the list of hardware profiles is displayed, select
"NewMotherboard" (or whatever you named the new system profile).
10. When at the desktop in Safe Mode, the Found New Hardware wizard
will run. Using the printed "System Resources Report", find the
drivers that Windows wants, and type in the folder locations as
requested. In my case, Windows needed help to find drivers for the
video card, sound card, and NIC. Using the System Resources Report,
it was a breeze to direct Windows where to find each needed driver.
(I waited until all drivers were entered before rebooting).
11. Shutdown and restart. Let Windows proceed; no need to go into
Safe Mode. At the hardware profiles screen, select the new system
profile e.g. "NewMotherboard". At the logon screen, logon and Windows
will boot to the old desktop. (At the desktop, the desktop icons that
Safe Mode rearranged may need to be reorganized).
The old existing installation of Windows is now on new hardware with
absolutely everything intact. Nothing needs to be reinstalled, all
applications are as they were, and everything works just like it did
in the old system (only a whole lot faster). The hardware profile for
the old system is also intact. If the HDD protocol is compatible with
both old and new motherboards (e.g. both ATA-(same)), the hard drive
can be moved back to the old system and run on the old profile. The
"Generic Hardware" profile remains available to assist a future move.
Compared to the other "move windows to new hardware" options, this
hardware profiles procedure is slick. Experiences may vary, but it
worked flawlessly for me.
Note to Microsoft: This great capability and usefulness of hardware
profiles is completely undocumented. You've really got something
here; it should be developed and promoted.
Bjorn Landemoo
Thanks for your report!
I would like to see an MS Knowledge Base article describing your method to
move Win2000 to new hardware. Hopefully, someone from Microsoft will read
this and create the article.
Best regards
Bjorn
--
Bjorn Landemoo - bj...@landemoo.com - http://landemoo.com/
Microsoft MVP - Windows NT/2000