Replacing the motherboard without losing data from the drives.

Hello. First of all, sorry if this is in the wrong section, but I'm not on here very often. I'm also not a computer scientist, so I don't know if everything will be understandable.

My problem is that on my mother-in-law's computer the motherboard has failed. I deduced this from the fact that 4 capacitors are swollen. Two hard drives were connected to the computer. Unfortunately, one has the system (Vista) and files that are priceless for my mother-in-law. In fact, on the second one there are also priceless files that cannot be touched The point is that I want to put in another motherboard with a different processor, which doesn't seem difficult because the frames and other components are coming, but I don't have another disk and I have to keep these files. Here the question arises: "how to do it?".
As I wrote, I'm not an IT specialist, but I can easily put together a computer and install a new system, but I don't know how to start this topic. Can it be done at all? Please help. After all, it's about the mother-in-law

The system will start without any problems on the same chipset of the board, wouldn't it be easier to connect the drives to another computer to rip the data and after the problem?

I forgot to add that I already have a motherboard (or even two). Left over from other comps. I just don't know if the chipset is correct and I can't check now because I'm not at home. He thinks it'll be over tomorrow. And if you can't replace the disc, there will be no problem if I connect the second drive with the system to a good computer? won't these systems clash? Just how to use master and slave jumpers?

gomez.88 wrote:

Just how to use master and slave jumpers?

Theoretically yes. Don't forget to set the boot order in the bios.
You won't lose data from your drives even if you install a new system on one of them. However, remember not to change the partition and file structure in the system installer.
Leave the disks unchanged.

I did a full computer upgrade once - motherboard, ram, cpu. I just moved the drive to a new computer. The boot took a long time because the system was reinstalling the drivers for what it found. I haven't lost my data.

I had it on Win XP

Zwierzak81 wrote:

complete modernization of the computer - motherboard, ram, processor. I just moved the drive to a new computer.

good luck. I have put the system twice on the last three motherboards :/

Some opinions say to uninstall the chipset drivers from the system before changing the motherboard. I haven't tried it, so I don't know how effective it is.

My last board was on an Nvidia chipset (Abit KN9Ultra), I changed to the current Gigabyte on an AMD chipset (790XT). I managed without reinstalling the system, I started the system in safe mode for the first time with the new hardware, removed all Nvidia drivers, DriverCleaner leftovers, installed drivers from the new disc and hula.

Thanks all for the advice. I'll be getting around to it soon. Will let you know how the process went Greetings.

Hello
Swollen capacitors will be replaced by any service, this should not be a problem.
As for replacing the board, I once managed to start the drive on a different board (probably even a different chipset), but if my mother-in-law's data is priceless, I would first clone the drive and do experiments on a copy.
I also recommend looking into the power supply, if the capacitors on the board have swollen, there is a chance that those from the power supply may also be suspicious.
Good luck

I didn't uninstall anything. I changed the Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard to Asus P8B75-M LX. A backup copy is always a copy. It's best to have a portable drive even on a USB and make a copy.

However, I decided to replace the capacitors first. I read a little on the net what and how and got to work. There was a small problem with desoldering old kondków because I didn't want to overheat the board, but somehow I managed. Now there is a problem that when I connect the power to the processor (this four-pin plug, two yellow and two black), the computer does not move at all. You can only hear one "ticking" in the power supply when you try to start the computer. After disconnecting this plug, the computer turns on (the fans start moving and the disk sounds like when starting the computer), but nothing else. It was basically the same before replacing the capacitors. The first and so far the only guess is the power supply that I unscrewed but I didn't notice anything suspicious. Now I thought that I could immediately check with a meter if there is any voltage in this 4-pin plug. I will add that about 1.5 years ago this power supply was replaced. I don't remember the name, but it's supposedly some of the cheapest equipment that was available at the time.



The blue frame shows the capacitors that needed to be replaced at first glance, and the red one shows which one I replaced because it looked a bit suspicious.

What do you think? Is it a power supply?

It looks like a short circuit - check the socket where you connect the 4-pin plug to see if there is a short circuit.

If you had these 4 capacitors damaged, then you should replace all of them in this branch, and since this is the graphics card and CPU power section, you should replace all connected together.

Check the 4PIN ATX socket with a multimeter - diode test. I suspect there is a short circuit, either in the socket or the solder points of the socket and hence no operation.

You can recover data from disks through any LiveCD linux booted from CD, on any motherboard and on any type of media.

Multimeter!

Zwierzak81 wrote:

with a multimeter!

You could have corrected my post by gaining points. The wrong spelling was corrected by the dictionary in Chrome. Sure with a multimeter.