Using my harddrive on a new system

I have a system wth a mobo that has gone bad so I bought a new MoBo new intel cpu new mem and I want to use the harddrive with all the programs and date that i had on the old system. Basically I dont want to go thru the time of loading all my programs ad transferring all my data filest o a new hd. Is this even possible and if so how difficult is it? Thanks for any help I can get

It will require a repair install (reinstall) of Windows XP so that it can rebuild the HAL to match the new hardware. This will require the original windows XP installation CD and product key. I do not recommend this method, and instead prefer to reformat and reinstall fresh. I notice significant performance issues after doing a repair install of Windows XP on a new motherboard. There could also be other problems. In my opinion, a fresh install is best. But, if you must keep what you have, you'll have to do a repair install.

Hi rob k, Just to add to appleoddity's excellent response. In my workshop we make a reasonable income from folks who having fitted a new mobo try to avoid reinstalling their operating system from scratch…… and then finally bring it in to us for repair Once a customer has gone down the route of trying a repair install ("on top") with new mobo and has experienced further problems, then we won't attempt any fix other than a complete reinstall ( fresh) But it's your machine so its your call.. Regards paws