New Hard Drive Needed?

I'm buying a whole new setup except i already have a 200g HDD, so i didn't really see the need in buying a new one. But i read that if you buy a new mobo, you have to reinstall your OS for it to work properly, is this true? B/c i don't have the XP software b/c i'm using an HP comp and they didn't give me software. Any exceptions to this or what?

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050909/

you could try doing this.

I don't have the Setup CD though =(

Yes, and no. If you have a program (such as MaxBlast) that will copy over all the data from another hard-drive, then as long as you have drivers for the new mobo/vid card you should be fine (It worked just fine with my computer and my dad's computer). Otherwise you have to Reinstall Windows.



However, if you have XP you will have to reactivate it once you undergo a change in hardware as drastic as...well... everything. Most likely (since the OS came with the computer) you will have to just buy a new copy of Windows.

well that sucks, thanks for the info though, appreciated.

is your 200gig hd sata or pata. More then likely a new mainboard will be sata.

if so go to ebay and get a sata to pata adapter, they cost about ( $10-$15).

at a computer store they sell for about $50. I bought both pata to sata and sata to pata.

If the motherboard has SATA support then they wouldn't have to worry about it at all. It doesn't matter if a motherboard has SATA support, it will still support PATA drives. Besides that, they never even mentioned anything about it being SATA or PATA. There is no actual provocation for your statement (besides, if they had a question about the SATA/PATA interfaces and their new drive there would be a different thread for it.

NeuromancerWGDD'U ..... WTF, He said he had a HD and was going to buy a new mainboard . Most new mainboards are now SATA ...his existing HD may be PATA and Taven my not realize that...AND you are wrong again...not all SATA MAINBOARDS support both PATA and SATA HDs...The ASUS mainboard I have is SATA only.

And what model board would this be? I have never heard of any board that does not support PATA hard-drives. I've heard of boards in which you can deactivate IDE channels, but never have I heard of a board that would refuse a PATA hard drive, even after I snooped about online trying to find mention of this (in fact, if it wouldn't allow an IDE hard-drive then it probably wouldn't accept a peripheral drive either (dictated by logic), making that either one of two scenarios: 1) A dead cable or IDE controller, or 2) A case of lethal stupidity by the manufacturer, which is highly unlikely).



Because SATA is a fairly new-ish development it would be counter-productive and stupid to not provide support for PATA drives.



For a manufacturer to allow only SATA hard-drives at this point in time makes about as much sense as a manufacturer only allowing the use of SATA CD/DVD drives with their product.

NeuromancerWGDD'U you seem to be right and I apologize, although the ASUS mainboard I have in this HP Media ctr does not support IDE HDs, it is strictly SATA ( has one IDE for the cdrom and DVD) . I think it might have been Apple that has a Sata only PC and we have only had 2 SATA Windows PCs show up at the repair depot where I work, one was a Dell with SATA raid, I really did not check but I could have sworn that it only had one IDE port for the CDROM and DVD. anyway......sorry dude