[smashguy37]

A month and a half ago I had a hard drive fail, so I bought a new one (my OS ran on it) and then shortly after bought a new motherboard. After I put in the new motherboard, Windows wanted to re-install a bunch of drivers. etc. Yesterday I came home to my computer not being able to boot up, saying it was missing my windows/system32/system file or whatever. I went through Recovery Console and did the command prompt stuff to copy new files and delete other ones so I could get back in to Windows.

Now I have to re-install drivers among other things and everything has been set back to default. I'm guessing this occured maybe because I installed my current OS on my old motherboard and now it's running on a new one, somehow screwing up the registry/leaving old files behind. I keep on top of cleaning out old files, so I'm not sure how it happened, but should I just reformat now to avoid this problem later? Or having done what I've done, should I just reinstall drivers and settings back to normal and not worry about it?

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That question depends on what software you have available.
The original OS was using chipset (board) drivers from the original board.
After you had that somewhat fixed, you through it for a loop by giving the OS a new board.
The new board has different chipset drivers. You have confused the OS.

We generally recommend a new install and format when changing boards. That keeps everything clean.
I suspect that you were able to install the OS the first time ok.
I also suspect that you got a driver CD with the new board. You will need this. If you do not then you can get everything you need at the board manufacturers site.

It depends on what you are comfortable with.

Either way, let us know how you made out.

[123Runner]

That question depends on what software you have available.
The original OS was using chipset (board) drivers from the original board.
After you had that somewhat fixed, you through it for a loop by giving the OS a new board.
The new board has different chipset drivers. You have confused the OS.

We generally recommend a new install and format when changing boards. That keeps everything clean.
I suspect that you were able to install the OS the first time ok.
I also suspect that you got a driver CD with the new board. You will need this. If you do not then you can get everything you need at the board manufacturers site.

It depends on what you are comfortable with.

Either way, let us know how you made out.

[smashguy37]

I ended up reformatting after doing some more searching, figured it was for the best. Thanks.