If I have an image backup, what do I lose when I install a new motherboard into my PC?

“Accidentally” spent another $500 on my gaming rig to make up for my first-time-builder’s mistakes; namely, an ASRock Z77 Extreme6 motherboard, Intel i5–3570K processor, and a Corsair H100i for overclocking said CPU. Currently, I have a ASRock B75 Pro3 and i3–2130 on stock cooling. New stuff comes in sometime this week. I’m getting ready for ArmA 3.

I can make an image backup easy with Paragon. I already migrated everything from one SSD to a new, bigger one a couple months ago, and I had no problems. Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem. Now that I’m switching motherboards, I’m expecting things to get trickier.

I have 3 hard drives; a salvaged 500GB spinning disk, and 128GB + 256GB SSDs. The OS is on the big one, and the other two are used as storage space, as separately-operating drives; RAID is not set up at all. I’m saving the image on the biggest one.

So, I install this new mobo, it posts, and Windows (8 Pro) will go nuts presumably. I think I can take care of how to reinstall 8 when the time comes, but if you think you can help, it’s installed from the online key and I have heard that it is tricky reinstalling that. Planning on burning a disc if that is possible. I have a disk image of the planned-to-be C drive on the HDD and a disc with Windows 8 Pro on it.

What happens next? Will Windows suggest a repair of the installation? Can I force that sort of repair?

What do I lose when I reinstall/repair Windows (if/when I must)? What can I get back from a disk image, if anything? If nothing, it wouldn’t hurt me to just move things like photos over as well as reinstall the programs on that drive.

I have programs installed on the other two drives. Will they work with the new motherboard once the reinstall of Windows is done, or will they need adjustments/reinstallations as well? Or, do I lose data off of those drives as well when Windows gets reinstalled (though I think that is unlikely)?

Any more thoughts would be helpful. I won’t rush the install if it means a little more peace of mind.