SATA controller swap

[Supertex]

I recently had a MB failure...my SATA raid controller was the HPT374. Most all the motherboards I find now do not have the 374, or any form of the HP controllers.

My question is this...

If I choose another board, and attempt to use my current array with a new/different raid controller, will it recognize the original array? Or will it wipe me out, forcing me to start over?

I have heard several opinions on the matter, but I have yet to hear from anyone that KNOWS whether it will or will not work.

One other question...

If the consensus is that I will, infact lose my array's content with a change, then what are the chances of using the Rocket Raid 374 addin card, and trying to recover my content with it, as opposed to using an onboard?

I am aware that with the difference in chipset, onboard hardware etc, that the windows installation may not be able to adapt or update its drivers and continue to function. That said, let me point out that being in the field that I am in, I have made frequent use of the practice of removing a primary drive that has a problem of some sort, installing it as a slave in another machine, and harvesting important information before proceeding with whatever actions are required to restore the machine's functionality. I have NOT however, EVER attempted this practice with an array. Can it be done? In what environment must it be perfomed?

[Glock]

Unfortunately I have no definite answers for you. However.

Theoretically if you were to set up the controller to use the same block size as the existing array, it should recognise the data.
Basically if you can't get a controller to read the array, you're screwed. Your files will be split into blocks across the harddrives, with no way of figuring out which two chunks form together across the drives, let alone the collection of chunks that form a file. That information is held in the MFT or equivalent, and frankly, it's impossible for a human to read that.