I am buying a new motherboard as the one on my other computer I believe is damaged. My question is do I need to purchase a motherboard with an identical chipset in order for my current video card to work on the new one I buy? The chipset of the one I have is NVIDIA NF4 Ultra single chip and the chipset on the one i'm looking at is VIA K8T800 Pro and VIA VT8251. Any help would be appriciated.

First, the NVIDIA NF4 is a better chipset than the VIA. Which motherboard were you looking at ? Second, what type of video card do you have ? You definitely do not need the same motherboard in order for your current video card to work. However, if it's an AGP card, for example, the motherboard you're considering might not support AGP.

but if you buy one with the same chipset it is more likely the pc will boot into windows without doing a fresh windows instal or a repair instal on the hard disc

Good advice from both. Going from an nForce to a VIA chipset is a downgrade, plus chances are, any board swap you make will force you to do a "repair install" of Windows

Is your CPU a S939 or AM2? If it's an AM2, I suggest you look into a board based on the AMD 780G chipset. But before doing anything, how about explaining why you think your board is damaged?

As to why I believe my motherboard is damaged, here's the story:

One day I attempted to put another harddrive as the slave on the computer, a 320 Gig Maxtor, and when it didn't take, I booted back up with just the original master harddrive, a 160 Gig Western Digital. At first it just wouldn't recognize the harddrive at all, but then I overcame that problem. The problem I am now confronted with is that when i boot it up, it hangs at the "Verifying DMI Pool Data". I've looked up every possible method of fixing this problem and nothing seems to work. I've tried different IDE cables, different harddrives, set BIOS to fail-safe settings, even re-created the master boot record. If anyone has any ideas I overlooked, they would be much appriciated.

P.S My mobo is an Abit KN8 Ultra with an Athlon 64 processor

How about some more details? When you atttempted to install the Maxtor HDD as slave, did you put it on the primary channel with the WDC HDD or on the 2ndary channel? It would work either way, but for optimal data transfers, it should have gone on the 2ndary channel.

If you attempted to put it on the primary channel along with the WDC HDD, did you change the jumper settings on the WDC 1st? WDC HDD's have settings for "master/single" or "master w/slave"...if you didn't change it to "w/slave", that's most likely why it didn't work.

I highly doubt you trashed the board simply by trying to install a 2nd HDD. Double check the jumper settings. Make sure the cables are installed correctly. Unplug the power cord, use the ClearCMOS jumper to reset the BIOS, then try again.

When I put the Maxtor in as the slave I changed the jumper settings on the slave drive but not the WD master drive, but I see a much bigger problem than that. It won't even boot of my master drive alone. I try to install windows xp and it gets through copying the system files and it won't even continue all the way through because it requires booting off the harddrive for the last part, and I know I have my master drive's jumper settings correct. And I'm not completely clear on how to clear CMOS, what would the jumper look like?

Does the WD master drive show up in the BIOS under Channel 0 Master ? If you don't want to mess with the jumper, you could just rermove the CMOS battery, wait a few seconds, and then put it back.
"and it won't even continue all the way through" What happens, the computer reboots to the beginning of setup ?

"When I put the Maxtor in as the slave I changed the jumper settings on the slave drive but not the WD master drive"

You aren't clear on whether you attempted to install the Maxtor on the same cable as the WDC, but I'm assuming that's the case. If you didn't change the jumper on the WDC drive to "master w/slave", that's why it didn't work.

"I try to install windows xp...."

Why are you trying to install XP? Isn't it already installed?? You do not have a software problem. You most likely have a BIOS configuration problem. If you don't know where the ClearCMOS jumper is or how to use it, check your motherboard manual.