Add new motherboard drivers before mobo switch

[Vitalix]

Hi guys (and gals),

I just recently built my PC together using a G41 chipset board. Loaded all the drivers, all my software, everything is gravy. Recently found an awesome deal on a refurb XFX SLI board (I have a GTX460 and would like to option of just getting a second down the line). So essentially, is it possible to pre-load all of the nVidia 780i SATA/PATA drivers in my Win7 install and then just swap boards? I know I will likely have to re-activate Windows, but I'm ok with that. What I'd like to avoid is reloading everything from scratch (since I just did that a week ago).

Should I just download all the drivers, right-click every INF file I can find and install before the swap? I'm not sure if the EXE file that comes with the drivers will work as it will not detect the nvidia chipset as its running, trying to find a way around it so I can just swap and play.

Or am I asking for trouble, as it's new hardware (in particular SLI), should I just bite the bullet and install from scratch?

Thanks in advance as always!

[Tripredacus]

Theoretically, Windows should be able to handle a motherboard change, but with a couple issues. Your new board SHOULD have the same Mass Storage Controller or else you can get a 0x7b error at boot. You may have to reactivate Windows, but sometimes it is smart enough to detect that most of the hardware is still the same.

Also it is possible that you could sysprep /generalize /shutdown Windows 7, swap the board and boot back up. You could use Imagex and save your OS and could inject the drivers that way.

Again its kinda risky. If it were my personal system, I would backup all my stuff and swap the board and see what happens. Worse case scenario you can do a repair install.