new mother board ( do i reformat)

[yellowjohn]

i have previously installed 2 motherboards ( quite a while ago) as i was having big probs.i remember i reformated but i am not sure if i had to because thats what you do when you install a new board.

if you do why? as i can think of no reason that you should have to.

[kempie]

I can also see no reason for a format to be necessary, but if you are replacing a mobo I would suggest preinstalling the new drivers prior to the swap so that when you boot with the new board it (and all the new components integrated within it) should be recognised and automatically configured.

[OBonio]

It's just tidier to reinstall. You can do as kempie suggested but you will have drivers on your system that aren't needed. Windows can get a little confused sometimes!

[kempie]

I concur with OBonio that starting from scratch is the tidier option and should produce a more stable OS install.

However in my case, with literally hundreds of applications installed on my PC, I would not have the time nor inclination to reinstall and restore over 100GB of apps. and data especially when orphan drivers and registry entries can be removed either manually or by programs designed to do just that.