03-31-2005, 12:22 PM
HowGozit,Mar 31 2005, 12:43 PM Wrote:Even more oddly, you get away with a lot when you pull the same trick with Win98. You do have to have a pretty, er, robust (lunatic) attitude towards nasty comments from the OS, but I've upgraded from an Intel BX (Compaq) PIII motherboard to a VIA 266 Athlon XP1700+ motherboard and CPU (and changed the video card and had to reset the boot tracks on the drivewhile I was at it) and all was running fine after about 2 hours - no software reinstall required. I don't really recommend it though - quite a hairy practice with Win98. :blink:
[right][snapback]72571[/snapback][/right]
Heh, I pulled that off in Windows 95. Changed Motherboard, memory and processor, and the system would only boot in safe mode.
Enter in safe mode, go to the hardware manager, and delete every single device from the list (up to and including things like CMOS clock and the bloody processor).
Reboot, and watch as the OS detected everything. Cursed at me a couple of times, but in the end it was up and running ^_^
That aside, the repair install of Windows XP is indeed very robust. I wasn't as impressed with the recovery console though, I much preferred popping a Knoppix CD in when I had to fix low level stuff.