Force Win2k to redetect hardware?

[Anonymous]

Anyone know how to do this?

I am about to replace my motherboard and would like to force the issue without using plug n play so to speak.

[Anonymous]

Win2k won\'t like a new motherboard.  It cannot cope with a chipset change.  Mine just Bluscreened everytime after changing from an intel to a via chipset.

In the end I had to install a fresh copy to an alternate directory, let it do the detection, install yet another copy in yet another directory then copy the services part of the registry (winnt/system32/config/services) from the other working copy to my origional system.

It now works.

You could try booting in safe mode first and removing all the drivers and then changing the motherboard before the reboot?

[Anonymous]

What works is, get your MB, install the drivers for your new MB on your old MB/W2K install and then shut down and install new MB. At next bootup drivers for new MB ar loaded and it W2K boots at least up to do rest of cleanup. Otherwise only fresh install.

[Codex3000]

Or another good way is to pop in the win2k cd and select \"upgrade\".  It will prep your system to upgrade to itself (meaning, for example, upgrade from win2k pro to win2k pro - don\'t ask me why they still call it an upgrade).  then it will try to reboot, but just shut it off.  Swap your hardware, then when you boot back up it will redetect all your hardware and reinstall (almost) all the OS files, while keeping your apps and settings.  You\'ll need to re-service-pack it too.  I\'ve done this several times for lots of different hardware changes, like drive-controllers, motherboards, CPUs, etc.