I have a machine that runs PERFECTLY STABLE, but is a bit slow for the work I do which is image editing in Photoshop (LARGE IMAGES WITH LOTS OF LAYERS).
So, I am trying to upgrade to a new CPU/Motherboard combo. My old setup was a Intel P4 3.4 Ghz MSI motherboard, now I have a MSI Gforce 4 MB with a dual-core Opteron. I ghosted my boot drive to do a dry run and can't get past the 0X0000007A blue screen of death. I can boot into Safe Mode, and I installed all the missing drivers, but reboot still sends me to the blue hell.
This machine is tweaked out completely software wise and reinstalling all the applications is a daunting task, we are talking DAYS of tweaking. It seems likely that it is a driver that is causing the problem, but I don't know where to start to fix it.
Has anybody here done a move like this and have some pointers?

There's gotta be a way!

PS, I tried doing a "repair" install and that did not fix the problem either.

You don't mention what operating system you are using, but I will presume that it is XP. If it is XP and you ghosted your hard drive, when the system comes up it will be expecting to see your former computer's hardware configuration. Two things happen: 1) XP "thinks" you are busting your agreement about running XP on one system alone and 2) it will go right ahead and use the old parameters to run your new system knowing full well it will fail.

You may think that setting up your new machine using a ghosted drive is a shortcut, but it isn't. It is clear that stability is important to you. This system will never be stable unless you clean install it. There is just such a difference between an Intel system and an AMD/Nvidia system - believe me your tweaks to Photoshop will also be different. In other words, in the long run, you will save yourself a lot of grief if you clean install getting the real hardware configuration enabled from the start.

Boot to the XP cd and try a repair install as it will enumerate Plug and Play devices again which will include a new hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The HAL is most likely why you are getting a blue screen.

Well, it is XP Pro, SP2, and the repair install did not work, I still get the BSOD. I suppose a compromise might be to do a clean install without formatting. At least I will have all the photoshop filters etc in place...

You would think that if you could boot to safe mode, there would be a way :-(