So you get a New System.......New Case, New motherboard, New CPU, New GPU, New Everything Hardware................You love your MAIN HARD DRIVE, You love all the setups in it, all the applications installed.........and of course your BELOVED FSX.The TWO must meet and COEXIST. HMMMMM.........Except for drivers etc.......you do NOT want to install Windows and other stuff from scratch, you want to use the existent stuff that is in the old hard drive.You install your Old Hard Drive in the New Case of your system. You cross your fingers and FIRE UP........I have done this before with different results. Sometimes I was successful and sometimes not so successful.Here is the question. What would be the best way to INTEGRATE the Old Drive with the New System? I am sure many of us would like to know.I would appreciate any thoughts and helpful hints.Thanks.Abe

This has little to do with your HDD as such and everything to do with your Windows installation. Drivers is one thing - all the old registry entries pertaining to your old system is quiet another. There are a multitude of other system files to contend with as well. Thing is that it is indeed possible to achieve what you are suggesting, however, when it comes to troubleshooting anything down the line you will never be sure that your problem does not come from rouge registry entries. And there is no way on earth to reliably clean out your registry from all old hardware related entries.Do yourself a favour and take the opportunity to do a fresh re-install of the whole lot. Will be well worth it in the end.Note: If you take the time BEFORE you change all your hardware to get EVERYTHING running on default Windows drivers and then do the hardware swop you may well be able to have a successful meeting of minds as it were. But again, this is not generally recommended as there is no guarantee whatsoever that all will be well in the end.

So you get a New System.......New Case, New motherboard, New CPU, New GPU, New Everything Hardware................You love your MAIN HARD DRIVE, You love all the setups in it, all the applications installed.........and of course your BELOVED FSX.The TWO must meet and COEXIST. HMMMMM.........Except for drivers etc.......you do NOT want to install Windows and other stuff from scratch, you want to use the existent stuff that is in the old hard drive.You install your Old Hard Drive in the New Case of your system. You cross your fingers and FIRE UP........I have done this before with different results. Sometimes I was successful and sometimes not so successful.Here is the question. What would be the best way to INTEGRATE the Old Drive with the New System? I am sure many of us would like to know.I would appreciate any thoughts and helpful hints.Thanks.Abe

Might have been a time when I could have told you what and how to do it....but those days are gone. What I can relate to you is what is probably best to do if you use that drive along with another in your system. I just built a new system...took my old 500 gig...with only FSX stuff on it....and put it in a new machine as drive E: I fully formated my new OS drive and only did a quick fromat of 2nd HDD. After all was installed and working was going to try some flying....first flight in my new system...set up a vfr flight that I had done a hundred times on my old PC...had not done any flights on the new machine..new install...but there was my old flight! Needless to say as I tried out other flights using flight planner when I would go to save them some would say ..you already have flight so and so sure you want to over write it. You get the picture. Now the only reason this botherd me was that FSX was acting a little weird. I did a search about quick format vs full fromat and got a difference of opinion doing it both ways as to what happens to the data. I know all about the headers and all that but the bottom line...in my opinion....somehow the old FSX files were interfereing with my new install of FSX. Stuff showed up that should not have been installed to FSX yet. I did not want to do it but did a complete uninstall and a full format of the drive. The bugs left FSX and when I did my old flight plans from before they did not show up as being already on the drive. This is just my advice to save you time depending on how you use your old HDD. I am sure someone much smater than me maybe will post and tell you how to do it and be succesfull. I hope so because that was the worst part for me...re-installing all the software on the new rig. Good luck. Regards

So, you want to make your new MB recognize your old hard drive. Not easy, but it can probably be done with Ultimate Boot CD For Windows(Google it). There are some registry apps on the disc that you make that might make that happen. Kind of advanced, which is why I can't figgure most of it out. But I have done what you want. As you know drivers are an issue.Bob

Thanks guys for your help and suggestions.I realize that the best way, as you all suggested, is to start from SCRATCH. Just building things piece by piece. But like I mentioned before I want to keep and use my current applications.......Believe it or not, my accumulated system which I am using now has been in existence for more than 5 years even though I changed my systems about two times. I am well aware that makes it kind of clumpy which makes things slow down and definitely NOT OPTIMIZED.I must add that in addition to my main drive, I have another 500gig drive which I use mostly for experimentation. Please don't laugh when you hear the rest. The second drive is bootable and it has about 4 different booting systems: XPS2, XP64, VISTA64 and a copy of main drive setup.The first 3 have their own FSX. Each is dormant in a FOLDER. Whenever I want to use one, I just take the contents of that folder out and put it in the main area, and since it is the same drive, the transfer takes only seconds(Of course, that would be done when I boot up with my main drive).I am still open for suggestions.By the way, some more help about my future system. I can think of some components, Intel i7-965, Asus or Abit motherboard, ATI 4870x2(I realize that the GTX280 is faster, but I need the ATI for video capture etc....), 6 gigs of ram.......suggestions appreciated.Thanks again, guys.Abe

Thanks guys for your help and suggestions.I realize that the best way, as you all suggested, is to start from SCRATCH. Just building things piece by piece. But like I mentioned before I want to keep and use my current applications.......Believe it or not, my accumulated system which I am using now has been in existence for more than 5 years even though I changed my systems about two times. I am well aware that makes it kind of clumpy which makes things slow down and definitely NOT OPTIMIZED.I must add that in addition to my main drive, I have another 500gig drive which I use mostly for experimentation. Please don't laugh when you hear the rest. The second drive is bootable and it has about 4 different booting systems: XPS2, XP64, VISTA64 and a copy of main drive setup.The first 3 have their own FSX. Each is dormant in a FOLDER. Whenever I want to use one, I just take the contents of that folder out and put it in the main area, and since it is the same drive, the transfer takes only seconds(Of course, that would be done when I boot up with my main drive).I am still open for suggestions.By the way, some more help about my future system. I can think of some components, Intel i7-965, Asus or Abit motherboard, ATI 4870x2(I realize that the GTX280 is faster, but I need the ATI for video capture etc....), 6 gigs of ram.......suggestions appreciated.Thanks again, guys.Abe

This was my first build in 10 years...used to do one every 6 to 8 months. I went with the Asus P6T Deluxe. Wanted the Palm edtion...only 38 bucks more but backordered....this thing is darn near idiot proof. The 965 is a lot of money...but you do get what you pay for. I clocked my 920 to 3.4 but that does not make it the same as an stock 965..as many posts on different forums suggest. I did get the Corsair ram DDR3 1600...even though with my setup it is only set at 1365 I beleive. Although a lot of people have said they have taken their 920 to 4ghz or 3.8ghz...I don't want to push my luck....and I am not into water cooling even though those folks say they have done this on air. The i7's run hot. My next runup next winter will maybe be Vista....new cpu.....if Intel does not change the sockket....and new video card....the 9600GT is OK but there is better but I only paid 79 bucks for this thing but boy it gets hot. Regards

.....if Intel does not change the sockket....

The newer I7 CPU's that will become available sometime next year will use a different socket, H1, with 1066 or 1156 pins :( . They will be dual channel instead of triple channel which probably accounts for the fewer pins. It also might make them cheaper. As I am currently thinking about building an I7 system I am a bit worried :( that there's no way to upgrade to a newer CPU later later without changing motherboard as well.Regards,Allard