the entire purpose of the key is to marry the drive to the MB.

sounds like the key is wrong. I hope you didn't use your old key, the new MB will likely have a different one.

there's hundreds of tutorials.

the tutorial comes with dosflash.

ALL the info is here. in fact, there's very recent threads on downgrading and mods that you couldn't possibly have missed if you had only LOOKED.

the via card should.

for what? other chipsets won't work later on either.

that port can't be correct, there's no T in hex.

unless you have a via or nforce 4 chipset, there is simply no way to make it work without modifying the drive.

only if you have an exploitable kernel. what is needed for linux is explained in detail in various threads, search for Xell.

only by wiring a switch.

there are several PC drives that can be flashed with a special firmware to dump the games without any swapping. use the search function to find all the info on that.

uhm, yes, good morning.. we have a thread on that already.

slow also has the big advantage that the drive runs MUCH quieter.

dualbooting any drive makes no sense whatsoever, with firmware stealth and MS banning the disks, not the firmware.

if you f*** with the game, it can be found out. and you'd have to modify the savegame. modified savegames get your account banned, not just the box.

that board is overkill since it has a (very weak) graphicscard onboard, unless you have no card of your own already.
there's tons of boards with nvidia chipsets for AM2, but I'd wait till the flasher and the firmware is actually out, otherwise you may very well find yourself with a board that doesn't work.

uhm.. you need an nforce sata chipset, i.e. the onboard, native sata ports. having an nforce MB and then slapping in a via card still means you are flashing through via.

no, since the package itself is signed.

no, you are at fault for being lazy. YOU have other things to do in your life, but WE are supposed to spoonfeed you everything bit by bit? nope. not here.