need to reload OS... what to backup/how to restore

[salsbst]

I need to relaod my OS due to the fact that somebody up there doesn't want anything to be easy for me in the month of February.

My plan is to backup sage.properties and wiz.bin. After installing the beta on the new OS, I would launch it and register it with my license number, then quit it, and copy back the original sage.properties and wiz.bin.

Will that work?

Thanks,
Stuart

[stanger89]

Should work just fine (assuming you install the same/later v of Sage). That also assumes they sage.properites/wiz.bin weren't hosed.

[mlar]

It works.. I've done it two times so far..

A tip btw - http://www.ibackup.com/, great for backing up your sagetv files offsite.. I use the service to back the wiz/properties files as well as my important documents etc. It comes with plenty of client software which makes it very easy to use. A bit expensive if you are trying to backup GIGS of data, but a 50MB account will get you a long if you only back documents and config files. It also compresses your data, so you can with more than 50MB in there without much of an additional effort.

[salsbst]

I have been thinking about offsite backup for my 480GB raid server. ibackup might not suit the bill for that volume, but it's nice to know what's out there.

I didn't hose my OS. Actually I need to switch mobos on my SageTV server. I built it with a new ABIT IS7-E last week and the Northbridge fan has started to rattle. I've since seen other reports of this problem and I decided to go back to ASUS which has served me well in my HTPC machine (which is a client of the SageTV server under discussion in this thread0. The P4P8X-SE has a NB heatsink rather than a fan, plus it has a GB LAN built in, so it's probably a better choice for me. Anyway, that's why I'll be reinstalling the OS.

Thanks for your responses, guys. I'll proceed. I'm not looking forward to scraping the stock thermal tape off of the processor and heatsink, but I need to bite the bullet and get down to it.

Regards,
Stuart

[AJ Bertelson]

Girder?

[salsbst]

Huh? Seem's like non sequitur.

[AJ Bertelson]

Do you have girder installed? If you do you might want to back it up.

[salsbst]

Oh, yes. Thanks, AJ!

I'm all set with my backup/restore plan now. Just need to find the energy to dig back in to the hardware nightmare.

[justme]

Just need to find the energy to dig back in to the hardware nightmare.

I love building computers(did it for a living for 5 years) but I absolutely hate to change motherboards. You have my sympathy and best wishes.

[stanger89]

Just try fitting 4 HDDs, DVD-RW, Video Card, Sound Card, 250, full-length raid card into a D.Vine 4.

[AJ Bertelson]

Originally posted by salsbst
Oh, yes. Thanks, AJ!

I'm all set with my backup/restore plan now. Just need to find the energy to dig back in to the hardware nightmare.

heh, there is probably other stuff that your forgetting then.

What software do you run on your htpc?

[salsbst]

Win2k3, Girder, USB-UIRT, SageTV, SpeedFan, and PowerDVD are it. I only built it three days ago and it's only a server so there's not much to remember.

[reverse]

"Changing motherboards without reinstalling Win XP

One tip I have come up with resolves Windows XP’s inability to allow for a motherboard change without reinstalling. There is a way around this. Before you change the motherboard go into device manager and change the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers to "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". You do this by going to update driver and then selecting "Don't Search. I will choose the driver to install." Then select the "Standard....Controller."



After you have changed the controller, shut down the PC and change the motherboard. You should now be able to boot without the blue screen. Now load the new motherboard drivers including the new IDE controller driver. This is useful for people who use removable drives or people who need to upgrade their motherboard.

-Wayne Chau"

[msm]

A key thing i always forget are emails containing important data, such as purchase codes etc. Not sure if they will be on that machine, but worth checking,

Matt

[sudipto]

Not sure if this directly applies in your case, but I have had surprisingly good luck changing motherboards under XP without having to go thru the re-install as long as the chipset is the same i.e. going from nForce2 to nForce2 and not from VIA to nForce2 or vice versa. I know you are talking about Intel, but the same may apply there.

I would definitely back up my stuff first, but before you blow away the current install, it may be worth trying boot up XP with the new mobo and current installation.

I did it 4 times in the past two weeks (don't ask me why ) and it worked fine each time.

[salsbst]

I'm using i865 but changing manufacturers. Frankly I have so little invested in config time for this machine that I'm willing to reinstall the OS.

When trying to get two 250's working on Win2k server over the last two weeks, I installed the OS about 6 times. One more won't kill me.

Thanks for all of your contributrions, guys.

[salsbst]

Originally posted by justme
I love building computers(did it for a living for 5 years) but I absolutely hate to change motherboards. You have my sympathy and best wishes.

Well I'm in process now. I used the wrong screws to affix the old motherboard to the case! It took a lot of sweat and groaning and some nevervous moments to remove the darned thing since the screws were too tight. I thought for a couple minutes that I would have to saw the thing into pieces (newegg probably woulnd't have honored my RMA if I'd done that).

Now to scrap the black goop off of the heatsink and processor. Thanks for your well wishing

[justme]

I thought for a couple minutes that I would have to saw the thing into pieces (newegg probably woulnd't have honored my RMA if I'd done that).

That's a good one. Situations like that are why I always hated that part. Still wishing the best.