After reading through this thread there seems to be at least one missing piece of information. Are you on windows 7?
If you are not on 7, you are almost certainly going to have to re-install the OS. Vista and prior are not fault tolerant when it comes to a change in the chipset.
If you are on 7, then you have a much better chance of success. I literally pulled an SSD out of my Alienware laptop and threw it in my newly built desktop and hit the power button and it successfully booted.
What to expect:
The first boot is going to take a long time. Depending on the speed of your HDD and the number of devices that have changed, it may seem as if your computer is not responding. Moving the SSD to the desktop, it took about 15 minutes for the computer to boot up the first time. If you are doing this on a HDD it will take longer, but the amout of devices that are going to be different is going to be significantly less than what my computer had to deal with so that will shorten the time required. Just be prepared to wait and maybe go have a beer while waiting.
At the end of the first boot, Windows is not likely to ask you to install any drivers. When it sees the missing hardware, it is going to revert back to the available drivers it has and install the default set just as it would for a fresh install. You will need to then install the drivers the same way you would as if it was a fresh install. The chipset driver should be the very first one you install.
Windows is going to deactivate. Microsoft has decided that the motherboard is the basic unit of the computer and a change in motherboard denotes a change in computer. Kind of sucks but it is better than the old system where they took a map of your whole system and applied incremental changes to determine if the system was different. With the current system, you can change any and all pieces of your computer with the exception of the MB. The old system was a crap shoot as to when you were going to hit the threshold.
Where did you get your copy of Windows? If you purchased a full or upgrade retail copy of windows, then you have no problem. If you purchased an OEM version or your computer came with an OEM version pre-installed. You are going to have a problem. OEM version are one time licenses and may not be transferred to a new computer (as defined by the motherboard) and this is clearly spelled out in the EULA. Some people have claimed that they got an MS rep that unlocked it for them but you should fully expect to be denied an unlock on an OEM version. If you do have a retail copy, a quick call to MS will get it unlocked and then you just click on the activate button and you’re done.
Continued use after pulling this off – you may not be happy with the performance, particularly boot times and memory usage, of your computer. Even if you uninstall all the unused drivers, there will be fragments and such left over that are going to drag on your computer. I put up with mine for about 3 weeks before I had had enough and wiped it and did a full re-install. Yours may not be as bad due to the lower quantity of changes, but be prepared for the worst.
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