How best to change motherboard without losing recordings?

[frazer]

Hello,

I want to change the motherboard and processor in my HTPC, and have been investigating how best to keep as much of what's already on my hard drive in the new set up.

Advice on the internet about switching a motherboard and then using the same hard drive with XP already installed ranges (predicatably!) from "it's easy- just install the new motherboard drivers onto the hard drive before swapping" to "don't even try, it probably won't work", so I wonder what experience people on here have had?

From what I can gather, the best option would seem to be getting a second hard drive (there is space for one in my case), using that as the C drive with a fresh install of XP, and keeping the old hard drive as a D drive. Then installing GBPVR again on the new drive, before copying the configuration and database files over from the old drive.

Would I then though have to copy all the video files to the same folder on the new drive as they occupied on the old one for GBPVR to find them? And would this render the old drive, (i.e now the D drive) redundant, or could I get GBPVR to store new files on the D drive whilst still finding those which are now stored on the C drive?

Or am I making this too complicated?

Thanks!

Frazer

[stustunz]

back up your database
install windows on new hard drive
keep the old hard drive with recordings still on it make sure when you install it into your new system it has the same drive letter
then import your database

set this setting to false in config.xml
<AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>true</AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>
this will stop it updating the data base if you have the drive letter wrong

[Koenie]

There is a flexible way of doing this: dump the recordings using the config app. This outputs a recordings-dump.xml file. Back this file up and later on you can change the path for every recording using a text editor (watch out this has to be plain text, I use Notepad++ for this) and reimport in GBPVR.

This way you can easily change the location of (some of) your recordings and thus even distribute recordings over your drives.

[shadowze]

Hi I just had to do the same thing on my media PC system
I changed my mobo from an Asus P5w DH deluxe to a gigabyte P35C_DS3R
( These are totally different chipsets by the way 975 -> P35)
Changed cpu from E6420 -> E6600

First download the drivers for your new mobo onto your current system ( chipset inf , Lan , onboard sound ) c:\drivers is what I use

I then took PC apart , fitted new cpu to new mobo and rebuilt system

Booted windows , I then Uninstalled the old mobo drivers from my system( chipset , lan , audio )

Then installed chipset (reboot) , lan , onboard sound(reboot)

It will reinstall the other drivers for PCI cards itself (will prompt you)

I had a Nova-T500 and a PVR 350 card in my system , everything works fine
gb pvr still has all my settings etc.

This is my experience of doing this , total time taken , about 1 hour.

Good luck :-)

FYI , O.S. was Xp pro , win2k will not be so forgiving

[Deusxmachina]

Advice on the internet about switching a motherboard and then using the same hard drive with XP already installed ranges (predicatably!) from "it's easy- just install the new motherboard drivers onto the hard drive before swapping" to "don't even try, it probably won't work", so I wonder what experience people on here have had?

You CAN just connect the new motherboard to the old drive, and it should work ok, but that's not recommended. Potential errors may come back to haunt you. If you don't mind getting another hard drive, great, then there's no reason to not install a fresh windows onto the new drive.

[frazer]

Thanks for all the replies; but I'm still a little confused as to what best to do. I wonder if there are any more people out there who have successfully swapped motherboards without reinstalling XP as shadowze has, so that I can get an idea of the risk I'd be taking in doing that (by the way, I'm changing from a Pentium 4 board to an Athlon64).

@stustunz are you saying I should install a fresh XP and GBPVR on the new drive and call this the D drive, and then have my old drive with the recordings on as the C drive (which it is currently)? Would the computer then boot into the D drive if I made that the IDE master? This could work for me as I have a small spare hard drive which I could use for this, and keep all the software and internet use separate from the recordings.

Thanks again,

Frazer

[stustunz]

yes that is what i am saying thats the simplest
but it means your new system will just look a bit strange as your system drive will be d
doesnt really mean anything its just a name
why do you have recording on the same harddrive as your system anyway

the other option is to save all the recordings to another drive with video archive it will update the data base for you then format the system drive you have and load the new system

you could give it another drive letter but then you would have to modify the database to match ive never done this as like i said before im to lazy

if you do keep it as drive D and install another drive you can then use that as your recording drive and gbpvr will still see that the other recording are still on drive D even though the new recordings are now been done on E

but gbpvr has no built in file moving utility
there is another one on the wiki somewhere called simple archiver i havent used it as i am happy with video archive

you could do what koenie said that would work

the main thing is you save your database file
or export recordings dump or both
i would save the gbpvr folder

[SANGER_A2]

Buy some amazing software called Partition Magic. It will let you split your C:\ into a C:\ and a D:\ and then you can backup your recordings to the D:\ - also move\copy any pictures, documents, important files etc (including from on the desktop) and your favourites (no-one remembers this).

Then try just swapping the motherboard and CPU once you have got the drivers for them. It will probably work no probs.

If it doesn't work or runs not as well (more likely than any big errors) you can reinstall windows on your C:\ and you'll still have your recordings saved onto the D;\

[shadowze]

Thanks for all the replies; but I'm still a little confused as to what best to do. I wonder if there are any more people out there who have successfully swapped motherboards without reinstalling XP as shadowze has, so that I can get an idea of the risk I'd be taking in doing that (by the way, I'm changing from a Pentium 4 board to an Athlon64).

@stustunz are you saying I should install a fresh XP and GBPVR on the new drive and call this the D drive, and then have my old drive with the recordings on as the C drive (which it is currently)? Would the computer then boot into the D drive if I made that the IDE master? This could work for me as I have a small spare hard drive which I could use for this, and keep all the software and internet use separate from the recordings.

Thanks again,

Frazer

I should have mentioned , I work with computers for a living and have swapped lots of system around without re-installing windows.

IF it works you will boot into windows fine , if it doesnt it will probably Blue screen when it tries to load windows , I dont think you will damage anything by trying.

[elite]

I should have mentioned , I work with computers for a living and have swapped lots of system around without re-installing windows.

IF it works you will boot into windows fine , if it doesnt it will probably Blue screen when it tries to load windows , I dont think you will damage anything by trying.

What he said... Never known windows not to boot with swapping quite a few drives around... (I'm sure they'll be a first now:p)