Upgrading the Dev Box

[Argh]

Well, I finally scraped up the dough to upgrade my dev box.

Before I go pick up the parts, I wanted to get some advice:

I have SATA drives at this point, it's XP, latest service packs. I've downloaded nLite, and slipstreamed SP3 into my old XP CD.

Do I need to do anything except "repair" my install, to install the new drivers? We're talking a new motherboard, processor, GPU, RAM... pretty much all the central hardware.

I really can't afford to BSoD this box, which is one of the main reasons I've procrastinated this long. There are too many things I have on here where I'd have to hunt down registration information, etc., and I'm really scared that I'm about to nuke my data. But I've finally bitten the bullet, and bought the parts, so it's do-or-die time.

Any advice on "oops" things I should check out from the experienced folks here would be much appreciated. I'll check this again when I get back, and again after I've gotten done pre-assembling stuff.

Oh, and lastly, I should probably mention that I already looked at sysprep... and I can't use it, because this OS was originally 2K...

[Peet]

I'd personally be more inclined to build a whole separate computer with its own fresh OS install and then transfer everything over; you'd have zero chance of making your current setup unusable and would then also have a secondary box for things like map compilation. I'd consider that sort of security to be well worth the cost of another harddrive and case.

[Tribulex]

win 7 is pretty

[SinbadEV]

You are going to spend 3 days tweaking it to work again the way you want it to no matter how hard you try to avoid it... I'd suggest you back up everything important to an external media and then just jump in... things are going to go wrong and the sooner you start the process the sooner they will be resolved.

[Argh]

Whee. This turned into an adventure. First off, had some "fun" with Fry's- I got there, ready to spend money, and they didn't like my credit card. There are times when being with a smallish credit union sucks, and this was one of them. I was already irritable and grouchy, so while discussing why my per-transaction credit / debit limit got reset to $500 by my bank, I bought lunch, and decided that I'd rather save some money shopping online, and have some more time to procrastinate... er, get work done while my purchase arrives.

So I went and spent my money with TigerDirect, and I have until Monday before the "fun" commences.

I'm ready for the 3-days-in-hell, if that's required- I've done a lot of OS installs and upgrades, one just 4 months ago.

I have multiple drives, so I can do a fresh install to a clean partition if need be. I just don't *want* to, if at *all* possible, because of the huge amount of data that's on this thing. Maybe I should buy a drive just in case I run into serious problems, though. $80 for a 200GB drive (I can easily fit everything that I actually care about on that) would make this less stressful, for certain.

BTW, I got a great deal, if anybody else is looking:

Corsair XMS2 DHX 2048MB Dual Channel PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory
Biostar TA790GXE Motherboard & AMD Phenom II X4 945 Quad Core Processor & Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 Video Card Bundle

$454.98 from TigerDirect as one of their killer bundles. I saved nearly $100 off of a roughly-equivalent package from Fry's when all was said and done, and while the 4750's not the best card ever, it's still a huge step up from the 7800GS I have now.

Yes, I bought ATi... I figure somebody who develops graphics stuff around here needs one, if for no other reason than ensuring that my own code's bug-free on both platforms. And I'm taking a chance on this Biostar board, but most people who've bought it have been quite happy, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Anyhow, now I get to wait until Monday. I'll mull over buying another drive just for "oh snap" purposes.

[Das Bruce]

$80 for a 200GB drive

I hope it gives blowjobs for that price.

[Peet]

You can get 1TB drives for $80...stop shopping retail

[KaiserJ]

$454.98 from TigerDirect as one of their killer bundles.

woowoo! haha i was just looking at it the other day; the only bit that didn't work for me was that it included an ATI card... i would much rather have the kit be cheaper and not include the card...

[Wartender]

$454.98 from TigerDirect as one of their killer bundles.

woowoo! haha i was just looking at it the other day; the only bit that didn't work for me was that it included an ATI card... i would much rather have the kit be cheaper and not include the card...

you can buy all of the parts individually (except the gfx card) for the same price iirc, no actual saving for buying the bundle.

[Neddie]

You can get 1TB drives for $80...stop shopping retail

I've gotten 1 TB drives for 80 USD at Fry's, so I don't know what Argh did. It was an emergency, I couldn't wait to receive one by mail.

[Beherith]

I also second the notion that you go the win7 way. There really is no point in installing a 10 year old OS - win7 just works anyway. Ive seen no hitches since the switch.

[Argh]

I've gotten 1 TB drives for 80 USD at Fry's, so I don't know what Argh did. It was an emergency, I couldn't wait to receive one by mail.

Hrmm. Looked, and didn't see anything way below that price point for that capacity. NewEgg wants exactly $80 for a fairly crappy 1TB drive, for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rder=PRICE

If you know where I can save more than the difference in shipping prices to make more than a teeny difference in the final delivered price, please let me know.

[AF]

Windows 7 x64, Anyone who installs a fresh XP on a machine these days who isn't dual booting it with Windows7/Ubuntu is to put it quite simply, either a fool or an administrator with a horrific application to work with.

[aegis]

I've gotten 1 TB drives for 80 USD at Fry's, so I don't know what Argh did. It was an emergency, I couldn't wait to receive one by mail.

Hrmm. Looked, and didn't see anything way below that price point for that capacity. NewEgg wants exactly $80 for a fairly crappy 1TB drive, for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rder=PRICE

If you know where I can save more than the difference in shipping prices to make more than a teeny difference in the final delivered price, please let me know.

The Seagate Barracuda (second on the list) is also $80 with free shipping, and it's not any order of crappy.

[Forboding Angel]

Windows 7 x64, Anyone who installs a fresh XP on a machine these days who isn't dual booting it with Windows7/Ubuntu is to put it quite simply, either a fool or an administrator with a horrific application to work with.

I'd have to fully agree.