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General discussion

Upgrading to Athlon 64

Nov 29, 2004 4:14AM PST

Hello all,

I posted this on another forum but it was suggested that I post this here instead...
I'm upgrading from an Athlon XP 1900 to an Athlon 64 3000. I've bought a MB/CPU/RAM combo and it will be arriving Wednesday. My question is this, when I go to install this new MB setup, can I just plug in my existing HDD's (I'm running XP Home) and keep going? Or will doing so cause many many many many headaches that will make me go bananas? If so, how do I circumvent this? Also, if there is a webpage out there on the 'net that shows a step-by-step upgrade procedure such as this, would you mind pointing me in that direction?

Thanks in advance.

Pedo...

Discussion is locked

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Re: Upgrading to Athlon 64
Nov 29, 2004 8:11AM PST

Sorry, you'll have to reinstall Windows. It will NOT like the number of items changing, and will almost certainly blue screen on you if you try and boot it. At the very least, you'd have to re-activate it, and you'd better hope you've got a retail version for that, or you're buying a new copy of XP.

Since you have to reinstall Windows anyway, you may as well download the trial version of the 64-bit version. No real point to it beyond being able to use the 64-bit features of your CPU, instead of only the 32-bit ones.

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Re: Upgrading to Athlon 64
Nov 29, 2004 8:25AM PST
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Re: Upgrading to Athlon 64
Nov 29, 2004 12:50PM PST

Note: If you have an OEM version (a disk not Dell or other Branded version) you can do a repair install and it you do not have to buy another one.

If after doing the repair install it asks to activate, go ahead and do it, if it says you already activated this copy, just call the number and explain you updated the hardware. Microsoft will give you a code to insert.
They have never refused and I only use the OEM cd.