Replacing dead mother board on XP system

scharkalvin writes: "It seems M$ has me by the short hairs. My wife's Compaq desktop croked (won't boot, CPU fan not turning and the heatsink is WHITE HOT). Looks like the MB/CPU is fried. I can't get a new MB from Compaq (too old) so I want to rebuild the machine with a new MB. Problem is what happens to the data and software on the HD? It seems you CAN'T transfer an XP instalation to a new motherboard. The EULA won't allow it. It also seems that you can't install a new copy ($$$!) of XP over the old one without loosing your data off the HD as XP will reformat the disk. Has anybody been done this road before? Yet another way Linux is better I think."