Not all recovery disks are created equal. You can use some recovery disks to reinstall even if you change the motherboard. However you will not know until you try it. If you really want to know how to do this you should google it. Example: use recovery disk winnt Never say Never Romeo Void Firefox 1.0.7 A Safer Browser Thunderbird 1.0.7

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I am quite familliar with 'googling'. I study spyware & viruses etc for about 10 hours a day. I hack hijackthis logs, rootkit logs, etc, etc all the while doing this. Have several test systems and a VM box to test baddies. Google is one of my best buddies. I am not all that great on hardware issues but am just trying to help someone out. My origional post was geared more towards finding some known good retailers for computer parts that would not cost me an arm & a leg for both the part and shipping, and not have to wait 6 months for the part. Figured someone could come up with a few known good. I theory if I found a fairly close match (or compatable) I still should be able to fire up the system as long as the rest of the hardware was not damaged. I don't have the tools needed to perform extensive tests to see. Since I cannot even get POST there is not much I can do even if I did have the tools. I know the hdd is fine cus I just finished copying off the needed data to my own box. Likely the worst that would happen is XP might want drivers for the new mobo I could d/l from manufacturer's site and I may need to call M$ because XP will want to activate again and because of different mobo the activation may not take. (aka call M$ for new PK because of upgrade) Was not planning on trying to use recovery cds with different mobo. I can create a new set with Norton Ghost or similar tool if need be. Affordablesurplus.com... Thanks for the link. :) I had tried several and most were 'obsolete' therefore not in stock and never will be. I was searching the actual part # and all over HP sites. Will keep that link in favs...I have 7 computers here and most are compaq. Friend decided to go with purchasing a new computer simply because we cannot determine what next is going to fail. Cost of replacing part + time just does not make sense for something else to blow up next month.... I think a power surge took out the mobo.(cheapo power bar) Had to have happened a while back and gone unnoticed till now. The blown capacitors on mobo have rust marks so it did not just happen yesterday. Thanks for the good pointers. :) Keep well.

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