can i use the same HDD after a MOBO swap?
 

Heres the problem
I have fedora core 2 test 1 installed on a computer...this shouldnt matter just fyi... have been working flawlessly running for about 4 months without a reboot, i love linux. just two nights ago my MOBO crapped out on me. ive never seen anything like this. i want to replace the MOBO with a different one. heres the catch, im one of those people that is always going to backup their data later... so i want to put a new mobo in and hook all the old periphrials to it and use the existing HDD. can i get at my home folder somehow to save me data? or will i possibly be able to boot from the current linux install on the hdd even though its a different mobo? i dont think thats possible. but if i use another AMD board compatible with my current processor then maybe?
so... can i either get at my data from another computer somehow? or can i reuse this hdd and get at my data?

If you didn't explicitly complile everything to match the CPU,
and the kernel isn't trimmed to only match the one chipset,
you can probably to pretty much anything as long as it's
compatible to e.g. i586 ...



Cheers,
Tink

And if that does not work you could always download a Live-CD Distro of Linux (like knoppix, for example). But Tinkster is right. It will (well, should) work if you haven't trimmed down your kernel.

Awsome, thats what I was hoping. I didnt tailor the install at all... im still a newbie, haha
but thanks for the quick replies! One more thing, what would I do with a Live CD version of linux? that would let me run linux without needing the HDD right? so i could then mount my existing HDD and have access to my files?

Yes. You could do that to get access to your old files. I guess I didn't explain what I meant by that. I have used live CD's on more that one occation to retrieve files off of an OS that would no longer boot. From there you could set up an FTP site or something like that to set the retrieved files on. Or burn them if that is an option.