Getting old OS and software working with new mother board

[fredmila]

Hello, I am a newbie to this forum (not to computing)

 

I have an old (and I mean old, more than ten years old) ATX PC, which is faulty. The PS blew, I replaced it and there is power going in but no signal going out. I fear the old PS damaged the mother board.

 

The thing about this PC is that it has software applications that will only work with the OS I have on it (Win 2000) they will not work with the latest Windows versions and I cannot afford to replace the software applications. I even lost the Win2000 and some of the software installation disks. Already one of them needs to recognise the hardware (mother board I think, with any luck the network card) to work, so I will need to see how much I have to pay the software company for them to give me a new key to get the software working with a new mother board.

 

My question here is, what are the chances of getting the hard disks, with the OS and software applications they have on them, working with a new mother board, perhaps a much more recent one? It could even be a matter of transferring the hard disks to a new ATX case with mother board.

 

Thanks

[Synapse]

There's is IMHO no chance of it working. Motherboards, hard disk controllers, data buses, memory are all so different. Try booting the old drive on a newer motherboard and it will blue screen.

 

The best solution I can think of is creating a virtual machine for Windows 2000 on a newer system, and reinstalling all of your software.

 

There are ways of imaging a disk, and from there creating a virtual machine, it gets a bit complicated and its not for this forum, but its worth having a read about it.

 

Also, have a read about Virtual Box, or Virtual PC, it may in the longer term solve your problems.

[Dalo Harkin]

What software are you referring to that cannot be used on any other OS other than 2000?

 

As for the MOBO drivers etc, they can be downloaded/ should be able to be downloaded from the MOBO manufacturer such as BIOS updates, sound, ethernet, chipset, GPU (if it is onboard etc)

 

When you replaced the PSU, did you have a look around where the 20 pin ATX attaches to the MOBO, if it has blown something it is normally visible by scorch marks, or by the capacitors bulging/leaking.

 

Worst comes to worst I would just try and purchase an exact replacement of the MOBO you have.... all the drivers etc will be the exact same, you would just need to configure the BIOS

[fredmila]

Oh dear, I think it is worse than I thought. I took the PC to a shop and they tested the hardware separately: MB, hard disks, cards, nothing works. They believe the PS had a surge or something and blew the hardware.

 

I had the good sense to create images of the hard disks with the Norton utility. Can these be re-installed in another machine that can run Windows 2000? Do I need to install Win 2000 separately or will the new PC recognise the Win2000 OS in the C disk image?

[Synapse]

The main issue is getting your hands on the exact or close match motherboard and video card (unless its onboard), and a hard disk of similar standard and interface, which is I think what Dalo was saying earlier in the thread.

 

So the drive will be an IDE, perhaps an Ultra ATA 33, a newer drive will do it.

 

You will be ok using your image on a new drive, but if the board is a new standard, Norton may image back to the drive ok, on boot it will probably blue screen.

 

Can you post the details of the old board, video and hard drive. If we have the make and model numbers it my be possible to find them on ebay.

 

Thats your only hope I'm afraid.