Migration from AMD to Intel w/o reformat

[noinimod]

I know that it's best to do a clean install of windows after changing from an amd setup to intel, but is there any way to skip this step? I remember chancing upon this website last time which had some instructions on how this could be done but i forgot to bookmark it. Google gave me some pretty weird search results too. Any ideas? :)

[funk32]

I know that it's best to do a clean install of windows after changing from an amd setup to intel, but is there any way to skip this step? I remember chancing upon this website last time which had some instructions on how this could be done but i forgot to bookmark it. Google gave me some pretty weird search results too. Any ideas? :)

the best thing would be to back-up your old stuff that u want to keep and do a fresh install of windows. due to the fact ur changing motherboard/chipset.

[Entity_Razer]

the best thing would be to back-up your old stuff that u want to keep and do a fresh install of windows. due to the fact ur changing motherboard/chipset.

your telling him to do the exact oposite of what he wants mate :)

Now firstoff, I don't condone doing it like you want it to, the whole "reinstall" is there for a reason.

But I can give you a nudge and to tell you to look on google how to reinstall your HAL.

I'm not sure myself HOW to do it but I do believe you can reinstall your hardware abstraction layer (HAL) which basically is the interpreter between microsoft and your PC.

Now, mind you, doing this can either disable your OS, so BACK UP !!!! cause severe boot/runtime problems or just not work at all, so I strongly advice you to make a full backup set well beforehand !

ye be warned :)

[Darrelj]

I'm changing over like you are from AMD. You can try what Entity said though. But I would go the safe route and backup everything that is important to you and then proceed. In fact as we speak I'm backing up my data so that I can do a fresh reinstall on my new hardware. I feel safer that way.

[Sailindawg]

@noinimod

Yes you can migrate a HD from an AMD build to an Intel build without reformatting and doing a clean install. I have done it using XP. I have no idea about VISTA, but it might be similar, but I have NO experience with VISTA. HOWEVER, beware that it may not work well and you may end up performing a clean install anyway. If all you are dealing with is one HD, then you can get away without a complete reinstall, however, if you have RAID, then you should perform a clean install.

I rebuilt my rig several months ago and went from a NF4/X2 build to X48/Core2Duo Quad build. Here's what I did for my single game drive and one other HD.

First, boot to the old build and remove ALL drivers related to onboard networking, chipset, video card, sound card and lastly cpu specific drivers through Hardware Manager. Reboot to safe mode and run Driver Cleaner or a similar program. Reboot back to safe mode, uninstall cpu through Hardware Manager. Shut pc down. Remove HD.

Now connect the above HD to your new build. If you plan on using Intel AHCI, get the floppy driver disk that you would use for a clean install. Connect the HD and put your copy of XP into an optical drive like you would do for a clean install. Boot to the optical drive, hit F6 to install AHCI drivers from floppy. After XP is done loading drivers, you will be asked if you want to do a full install or repair install. Choose repair install and point XP to the proper drive letter.

Let XP do it's thing. The pc will reboot and finish the install routine. You will need to load all drivers for your peripherals. However, all your previously installed programs and data should be intact and loaded just like you left it. For a repair install, XP does not rewrite the entire registry, so your installed program reg entries should not become compromised. I have done this twice with no ill effects so far.

A clean install is BEST. Do back-up your data before doing a repair install. I did this because I'm lazy. I also had a different drive with clean install in case things went badly. I will migrate all my data from the repair install HD once I get settled with either VISTA 64 bit or W-7 64 bit. For now, the repair install is giving me what I wanted and saved time. However, results are not guaranteed.

[noinimod]

Thanks for the suggestion.. i set up my rig yesterday and couldn't be bothered to go through sooo many hassle. Backed up my old data, did a clean install and here i am with no problems at all. Hehe

[Sailindawg]

Good to hear. I did it to see if it could be done. Figured I'd be doing a clean install anyways. I was surprised to see that the installed program registry entries stayed intact and were not over written. It was an interesting experiment.

[Gilhooley]

@noinimod

Just use a P2P (physical 2 physical) program, thats what they are made for. You can probably use a P2V program also, like http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/ witch is free. For i think they just reset all HW to "windows default".

[saveus222]

cant u use the migrate wizard in windows xp ?

[mattkosem]

Can't you sysprep it, install the new hardware, then start it back up and run through setup?

--Matt

[gillbot]

Can't you sysprep it, install the new hardware, then start it back up and run through setup?

--Matt

:up:

Sysprep is the proper tool.