Asus A7N8X-E DELUXE Problems

Just a warning, Windows XP is SUPER PICKY about SATA hardware and drivers.  I have a server that I cannot even think about flashing the bios or updating the SATA drivers or it will blue-screen on startup.  I tried updating the BIOS (which includes the SATA controller's firmware) and it blue-screened, so I flashed back to the previous BIOS and then updated the drivers and then flashed the BIOS.  The result was that I had to flash back to the previous BIOS and then "Last Good State" on startup to return to the working state.  After about 5 hours of messing with the server (including using a BartPE disc to shut of "Restart on Error" in the system registry, and using an Ultimate Boot Disc to make even more changes) I was back up and running where I was before I started the process.  

In your situation I would suggest getting a brand new hard drive and installing a brand new copy of XP once you have built then new computer.  From this state connect the old hard drive as a secondary drive, run "chkdsk /F" at the command prompt on that drive, and then copy the useful information over from it.  This will provide the most stable environment.  It will also prevent any errors caused by previous failures since you have checked the drive for errors and fixed them.

If this is unacceptable and you MUST replace the motherboard without reinstalling, I would suggest getting a replacement from ASUS.  We use ASUS in all of our custom built computers because they have a great RMA department.  Their policies allow you to return it easily and they send you a replacement quickly.  Using this option will give you a replacement motherboard with the same Chipset and SATA controller.

If you need to purchase a new board get a board with the same (or very, very similar) chipset and an IDENTICAL SATA controller.  The reason for this is that the SATA controller is interpreted by Windows XP as a SCSI-type storage controller and it will not see the drives and cannot boot unless the drivers for this device have been installed.  

In some (but few in my experience) circumstances you can get away with installing the drivers for the new controller in windows before moving the drive to the new computer.  This process requires an installer that ignores the fact that the hardware is not present (or requires you to manually register the DLLs and driver files into Windows).  

This method usually fails because Windows is strict about enforcing the same hardware is used for the hard drive and the storage controller or it will assume you have copied the operating system from one computer to another and will throw up a generic blue screen relating to hard drive controller failure.  This is not a bug, it is a feature! Windows XP prevents the type of cloning that became popular with Windows 9x that allowed you to "pirate" copies of Windows from one system to another by copying the system drive and installing it in a new system (it was actually used more in corporate and educational environments where many PCs needed to be installed quickly, where all PCs were usually licensed.  To allow this type of mass-istallation without cloning the hard drives MS launched the OEM Preinstallation Environment which allows a company or orginazation to install many copies quickly to many computers).  In normal scenarios it makes Motherboard failures difficult to repair, but Microsoft has determined that it is in their best interest to prevent users from copying their hard drive from one computer onto another (or in your case move your hard drive from one motherboard to another).  

Again, as someone who handles this type of problem regularly, I would strongly suggest rebuilding with a new motherboard and hard drive, THEN installing the drive as a secondary (very important to install the second drive AFTER Windows XP has been installed).  

You have an opportunity to upgrade to a better motherboard and newer, faster hard drive.  You will need to reinstall your operating system eventually anyway,  why not now and get a significant upgrade in performance while you are at it?

Some other points to think about:

If your hard drive is an old SATA 150 (prior to SATA II with NCQ, or SATA 3.0 Gb/s) It may be an ATA 133 drive with a SATA bridge added to the circuit board to make it SATA compatible.  If this is the case you will get MUCH better performance from an upgrade.  SATA I drives were prone to unexplained timeout errors and reduced performance issues because of the bridge.

A new board may require a new processor, but for $80 you can get a good Athlon XP 64-bit chip that will be faster than the one you have, and look for a board that supports DDR 400 memory.  Try to get one with SATA 3.0 GB/s (or SATA 300 [or SATA 300MB/s {they are all the same thing (3.0Gb/s = 300MB/s after overhead is subtracted)}]) and pair that with a good SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drive (Samsungs seem to perform nicely for their price).  The increased performance based on your new hard drive speed will astonish you. (SATA is backwards compatible so your 150 will sill work on the new board).

Let me know if you need any more information or hardware suggestions.