I have a Windows Server, in which the on-board SATA controller is broken and the machine can not identify any of the connected disks.
To overcome the issue I am thinking of buying PCI-E SATA Controller and connect all the available disk devices on it.
Will this controller be equivalent as the board controller. In short terms will I be able to boot without any issue my machine from a disk connected on the PCI-E controller? Do I need to re-install the OS (Windows Server) or it will work as is?
To avoid any confusion, the machine I am talking about is not a rackable server or a blade server, but is more or less a high-end 'desktop' machine that is used as a server.
Update 19.06.2015
I just installed the PCI-E SATA Controller and everything runs smoothly, no additional configurations of re-installations where needed.
Yes.
You should be ok yes, no promises because of potential disk controller incompatibilities but often this will work.
No way of knowing up front, not without a lot more details anyway, give it a try anyway.