hi blair
sure you can. BUT: you won't be able to simply pull your harddrive out of the onboard sata port - assuming it's your system drive - and connect it to the controller. you will need to install the new drivers for the controller first and force Windows to load those drivers on next boot.
- add card
- install drivers
- Registry: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services --> Look for your drivers, if you're using onboard AHCI, the entry would be msahci\start --> set it to 0
- try and reboot with disk at new controller
attention: backup first!
there's a less brutal way of doin' that since windows 7 (i guess you're using that):
- prepare your new drivers on an usb thumb drive or cd (recommending usb thumb drive)
- save a system image on another harddrive (using windows' integrated backup tool)
- create a system repair disc
- connect your harddrive to the new card
- add the new drivers when prompted
- restore the system image using your system repair disc and system image.
this certainly takes more time. i'm not sure whether there would be a way simply using the repair console. gotta ask my wintel guy @work
attention: cannot restore on smaller partition/disk
you can alway reinstall windows with your new card's drivers handy (which is probably not the way you'd want it)
have fun
BaMb1N0
