Dream Machine

[lostcowboy]

Hi Brainlessone, Let me see if I understand what it is you want to do. You have windows XP and a lot of programs installed in a old computer, and want to upgrade your computer with out hopefully losing data and having to reinstall the programs, and you want XP to recognize all the new hardware such as the new CPU! Wow, this will be going into the unknown, the correct way to do it will be hard to say. So the first thing you will need is a way to backup all your data, and may be the whole hard drive! I hear the Norton ghost program is good, I have never tried any of them so you are on your own there. If you are going to be transferring from a old hard drive to a new hard drive, a lot of the new hard drives come with software and instructions to do the transfer. About XP I know that it will detect new hardware such as sound cards and video cards and install or ask for the drivers for them. I am not sure how well it will work on new motherboards and CPU's. I am not even sure it will be able to start on the new computer, which is why you need to backup all data. When XP was first installed, (if you did a upgrade to XP, or bought the full XP) It had to go online to be activated. It is my understanding that it can do that three times with different hardware, after that you have to call microsoft and talk to them. Note if you are just formatting the hard drive and reinstalling XP to the same computer this does not apply. I have had to do that more than three times, with no problems.
Ok here is what I would do if I was you.
Back up the hard drive!
Go in and change the video adapter to the generic VGA adapter drivers, These are universal and will work with any graphic adapter to get you up and running. Later on you change to the correct one.
Now that that is done you remove the hard drive and install it in the new computer, or transfer the data to a new hard drive if you want to do that. When that is done you want to boot from your cdrom, boot from the XP Cd. Reinstall XP right over its self. it will examine your registry file on the hard drive and should keep all your programs and data. It should find all the new hardware and new CPU, and install all the correct drivers for them, or good enough to get you up and running, the new motherboard should come with a drivers CD which you may need to use ether during the XP install or after. When that is done you should be ok. Keep your fingers crossed!