Fellow Simmers,I am about to change/upgrade an AMD CPU for a colleague, but I am hesitant due to the fact that I am unsure whether the hard drive will boot due to changing/upgrading the CPU. I had a problem in the in the past from on a WinXp system. I went from a PIII to a PIV processor and the OS failed to boot.Just trying to avoid swapping back to the old CPU if this fails.Simeon (Kroswynd)

I can't imagine why the OS (Windows) would fail to start from a CPU upgrade unless the bios does not support the CPU.

Well maybe I need to clarify my statement. The HDD worked, its just that the OS failed to boot after the CPU change

It seems hard to diagnose the problem you had in retrospect; however, I don't think there's really much cause for concern. I recently popped an old hard drive that had XP installed on it into my new computer with the intention of reformatting it, and the computer booted from it until I changed the boot order in the BIOS. The only issue it had was that it recognized it was in a new computer, which causes it to deactivate itself. That will only happen when it detects a new motherboard, though. That was an entirely new set of equipment too, so I don't think a CPU change will mess anything up.Long story short, go for it.

Thanks for the heads up....I was a brave soul prior to your response, and you are correct the only thing that it did was deactivate the OS.Thanks

If an OEM copy of Windows deactivates permanently from changing the CPU only, then I am concerned. I previously thought that Microsoft set the software to deactivate permanently only if the motherboard changed. Perhaps all that was required was to reactivate the program following the CPU change. I had to do this one time when I installed a new, larger hard drive, and imaged the old hard drive contents, including Windows, to it. The reactivation was accepted by Microsoft.Art

I'm concerned too. I've not heard of Windows ever being opposed to just the CPU change.But all you have to do is call Microsoft and tell them that copy of Windows is only installed on one computer (most of the time you don't even talk to an actual human), and that'll usually be enough for them to reactivate it.