Upgrading a Motherboard without Reinstalling
@ 2005/07/31Installation of a new motherboard can be a real pain in the butt. If your new motherboard uses any other chipset then the old one, chances are you may experience the BSOD (blue screen of death) in Windows 2000/XP.
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Remove the IDE controller and install the MD standard IDE driver.
Shut down, replace mobo and restart. MS will install new drivers and your set. Not the best way, but it can help you out if need be.
I don't know about external devices, a PCI card might get another IRQ and onboard raid, well ...
though a PCI card might work without any modifications.
(PS the reason for this is that win NT based OS looks at the Pri/sec, master/slave of X IDE controller. If the X changes, MS can'tfind the boot partition, however if X is a standard IDE controller, it's something most motherboards have support for. Most of the time, if you stick to the same brand of chipset, it will work, without intervention.)