Another computer question (regarding upgrading)...

[MinionZombie]

Yep, another querie about 'pootahz' ...

Reet, my desktop - on which I edit - was built for me 5 years ago. Since then I've added a new graphics card and another 512mb of RAM, but I can't really upgrade it any further (in fact my graphics card has AGP turned off cos it was causing problems).

Now, I'm only pondering at the moment, about upgrading my desktop to say 2gigs of RAM (or more), a new gfx card, and a Dual Core AMD-64 processor (say the 4600+ for sake of argument). I assume this would require a whole new motherboard to do so?

But what about the hard-drives in my rig? For some reason I got the impression a while ago that if you change motherboard (in order to continue upgrading after you've upgraded as far as you can reasonably go), your hard-drives would have to be wiped, or you'd need new ones...?

...is this the case at all, or does it have no effect? So could I get a new motherboard/gfx card/double the ram/new processor that takes me from single-core-32bit to dual-core-64bit, without losing anything on my hard drives?

Simple, clear, informative answers for my fragile, little mind please. :)

Ta.

[acealive1]

hard drives should be fine. but some computers have an unspoken limit in terms of ram.

[Neil]

Yep, another querie about 'pootahz' ...

Reet, my desktop - on which I edit - was built for me 5 years ago. Since then I've added a new graphics card and another 512mb of RAM, but I can't really upgrade it any further (in fact my graphics card has AGP turned off cos it was causing problems).

Now, I'm only pondering at the moment, about upgrading my desktop to say 2gigs of RAM (or more), a new gfx card, and a Dual Core AMD-64 processor (say the 4600+ for sake of argument). I assume this would require a whole new motherboard to do so?

But what about the hard-drives in my rig? For some reason I got the impression a while ago that if you change motherboard (in order to continue upgrading after you've upgraded as far as you can reasonably go), your hard-drives would have to be wiped, or you'd need new ones...?

...is this the case at all, or does it have no effect? So could I get a new motherboard/gfx card/double the ram/new processor that takes me from single-core-32bit to dual-core-64bit, without losing anything on my hard drives?

Simple, clear, informative answers for my fragile, little mind please. :)

Ta.

If you're changing motherboard and CPU etc then you'd be wise to started from a fresh operating system install, and given the price of hard drives you may as well do it on a new one - leaving your old one as a backup you can grab stuff from once you've got the machine going...

TBH, if you're making that sort of leap, you may as well build/get a whole new machine to completely replace your existing one. Not worth compromising it to try and use a few old bits from your existing one...

Given performance and price, intel core 2 duo is the way to go I believe...

[MinionZombie]

Right, so essentially then - you'd have to get new hard-drives anyway, but you could have the data copied from the existing ones, to the news ones - correct?

Also, if I'm going to those lengths, I might as well get a whole new rig?

Right...well, like I said, just me thinking out loud.

I'll be able to use my folks' new machine (coming next week) for using Magic Bullet though, which is the main thing that takes quite a while on my rig, normal editing is fine though - but thanks to external hard-drives I'll be able to move footage from one to the other for Magic Bullet purposes.

Cheers for the info lads.

[axlish]

Your new mother board will likely feature SATA connections for hard drives. If you want to keep your old ones, you'd need an ATA to SATA adapter.

IMHO, you'd be better served building a new rig, perhaps from Dell. If you get an entirely new rig, you can just dump your old data onto the new. I like to upgrade to a new PC every 5 years.

[Neil]

Right, so essentially then - you'd have to get new hard-drives anyway, but you could have the data copied from the existing ones, to the news ones - correct?

Also, if I'm going to those lengths, I might as well get a whole new rig?

Right...well, like I said, just me thinking out loud.

I'll be able to use my folks' new machine (coming next week) for using Magic Bullet though, which is the main thing that takes quite a while on my rig, normal editing is fine though - but thanks to external hard-drives I'll be able to move footage from one to the other for Magic Bullet purposes.

Cheers for the info lads.

No:-
1) You could try going thru the faff of staying with your existing drive and OS, but that will almost certainly fail.
2) You could reformat/reinstall a new OS on your existing hard driver.

[3pidemiC]

The only component that requires you to wipe the hard drive and reload your OS would be a motherboard or (of course) a new primary hard drive.

[Neil]

The only component that requires you to wipe the hard drive and reload your OS would be a motherboard or (of course) a new primary hard drive.

No and no... :)

Many people do regularly change MB without re-installing their OS. Supposedly if you remove all drivers and then swap the hardware, Windows will redetect the new hardware (MB) and off you go... HOWEVER, it is risky and can end in blue screens of death.

Also, if all you're doing it changing hard drive, yuo can easily ghost if over from the old drive to the new one. Done it a couple of times myself.

[MinionZombie]

Aye, so basically it's a whole new box then essentially if I was gonna do that.

I have had my C Drive ghosted to a new one though when the original started conking out a while back, but that's a whole different thing.

I would be sticking with the same OS I have at the moment though.

[3pidemiC]

No and no... :)

Many people do regularly change MB without re-installing their OS. Supposedly if you remove all drivers and then swap the hardware, Windows will redetect the new hardware (MB) and off you go... HOWEVER, it is risky and can end in blue screens of death.

Also, if all you're doing it changing hard drive, yuo can easily ghost if over from the old drive to the new one. Done it a couple of times myself.

I realize that there are the repair OS installations that you can do to avoid completely reinstalling the OS, but they are risky and I never recommend them.

I have Ghosted my drive as well. But if the person does not have access to Norton Ghost...

[twistbud]

No and no... :)

Many people do regularly change MB without re-installing their OS. Supposedly if you remove all drivers and then swap the hardware, Windows will redetect the new hardware (MB) and off you go... HOWEVER, it is risky and can end in blue screens of death.


An xp trick I have been doing for a long time is just to simply go to your device manager and update all of your IDE ATA/ATAPI controller drivers to "standard hard disk controllers" then shut down and change your mobo. I create a image (ghost) after doing this and it's worked every time on every mobo I've tried. The only time I've had trouble is when loading my image on a laptop.

Haven't tried it with Vista.