My new PC's working but only up to the boot up of Windows, at which point it resets. It actually goes to load it, but just goes - it's not a boot device selection problem.

I've heard that after doing a mobo change, hard drives sometimes have to be reformatted, which means reinstalling Windows ALL over again as well as all of my data, and I'm seriously hoping that this is not the case.

My old specs were:
Matsonic MS8308E: http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/matsonic/MS8308E.htm
AMD Duron processor, 1.29 GHz, socket A
240MB of RAM

And my new specs are:
MSI 865PE Neo 2 PLS motherboard: http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/msi/865GNeo2-PLS.htm
Value Select DDR 400 512 MB RAM
Intel Celeron D processor, 2.4 GHz, socket 478
Radeon 9250 128mb 8x AGP video card

I tried installing drivers for the new mobo from the CD (whilst in the old system of course) but no joy.

Help is greatly appreciated on this one, athe faster the better as my Dining room is very much a computer workshop at the moment and the missus isn't too happy!

I did read a thread here sometime ago which went into some detail about getting around this. Can't find it just now.

Maybe uninstalling the old MB drivers while in the old system might be a better approach.

Dude, you cant change chipsets and processors from one type (amd) toa nother (Intel) and expect the hard drive to boot. when windows installs it creates the HAL ( Hardware Absration Layer) that is specific to the hardware on the machine windows is being installed on. you can do a repair install and it MIGHT work. but your best option is to do a clean format and reinstall if you dont want computer problems.

you could get anotherr hard drive and install windows on that then hook up your existing hard drive as a slave and move your data to the new drive.

try booting to the windows cd and go all the way thru the install up until it looks
and finds the old windows and tell it to repair.

no cd tough siht

Ah, so repair is a maybe option, otherwise it's reinstall all the way. Good thing I have 2 HDDs to dump all my stuff on while the other one reformats. Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

I read this but never had to try it:

Your upgrade can be very easy without worrying 'bout matching Chipsets, GPU, or anything else......... Rebuild the box and boot to your XP CD. Choose "Repair Install" (not repair using recovery console) and complete the install. Then insert the driver disk that came with your MB and whatever else, and load drivers. Of course I would then go online and do all MS updates.

When complete, your data, apps, and configuration should be in place just as you last saw it!!!

Good luck..........

Oh by the way, if you are also upgrading the hardrive, then your first step is to image the old drive to the new one (Ghost, Drive Image, whatever), and then begin the process above.

Have a look here:
http://motherboard.windowsreinstall.com/

...my opinion?Much safer reinstalling everything.

Hope it helps

I tried that and did the reinstall lark but it didn't go smoothly; the software differences between my prehistoric socket A motherboard that my cavemen ancestors made frequent use of and my new, just-about-credible-for serious-PC-users 478 mobo that is certainly more than competant enough for my needs must be just too large. I had to transfer all the stuff over to the extra HDD but forgot to use a files and transfer wizard, so I spent ages making everything 'as is', or rather 'as was'.

All my service packs, updates, software, etc., etc.are FINALLY in place.

I'm also pretty annoyed that I forgot to copy my FireFox bookmarks; I got the ones from IE but as I seldom use it, the favourites list is pretty old and missing some entries that are in FF. Still, I could have lost the whole lot, so I should be grateful!

Thaks for the advice people; had I not had any replies, I might've been trying to use the HDD with the old mobo installation for ages. As it is, knowing that it is a rarity to get a success, I was able to 'just get on with it', so cheers!