Hi my friend has asked me to fix his pc! the recent
electric storm fried his m/board and he wants it up and
running asap. the problem being is that his last m/board
and processor were intel (P3 i think) but he has went and
bought an AMD cpu and compatible m/board for me to put in
his machine.

what i would like to know is that is it possible to
install the m/board and cpu and keep his last win98
install or should i go for backing up his old files and
then do a format and fresh install?

Back up his files regardless of what you do. Sometimes you have to reload
Windows and sometimes things will work OK without doing it. Give it a shot
and see what happens. Personally, I'd take the opportunity to put a fresh
load of Windows on the machine.

--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"stevenm" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:dde201c43c05$f6828b30$a401280a@phx.gbl...

"stevenm" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

There is a high probability that the computer will not even boot into
Windows 98 with the new motherboard and CPU, except perhaps in Safe
Mode.

If you want to keep the existing Windows 98 install then install the
new motherboard and CPU and make certain that the first time you boot
the computer you do so in *Safe Mode*.

When it has booted into Safe Mode use Start - Run - REGEDIT.
Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE category and locate the folder named
Enum. Select it and then delete it. That removes all of the old
hardware information from the registry.

Shut down and restart normally. Windows will now detect the new
hardware and load the correct drivers and configuration settings. You
will need the Windows 98 CD (unless the .CAB files are already present
on the hard drive) and also the drivers CD that came with the new
motherboard.

It will take several restarts in order to complete the detection and
configuration and there may be some errors and unknown devices as a
result. These should be removed from Control Panel - System - Device
Manager and the computer rebooted again to detect these items
properly.

Also as a final step boot the computer into Safe Made and go into
Device Manager while in Safe Mode. If there are duplicated entries
for any item remove all repeat all instances of that item. Also
remove any entries for devices that do not exist. Exceptio: Entries
for "IRQ holder for PCI IRQ Steering" type items can be legitimately
duplicated and do not need to be deleted.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

In article <#98f3cAPEHA.2176@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>, Sorry@NoAddress.com
says...

A friend of mine had his machine fried... The motherboard was certainly
toasted... The hard drive worked for awhile and then died.

In the end it was a slow death by parts because every card he thought he
could carry over to the new motherboard died... one by one.

So, FWIW, I second the need to backup... and be prepared for other
issues.

....and, while this may seem overkill, if it were me, I'd have some
concerns about the power supply.