Techniques for initializing/reinitializing a device on an expansion card without power cycling the system. More specifically, an instruction set is provided such that a device on an expansion card can be reinitialized without power cycling the system. Further, the instruction set may be implemented to initialize a device on a replacement expansion card. During the system boot, an expansion basic input/output system (BIOS) is copied into the system memory. After the system boot, a copy of the configuration information for the device on the expansion card is saved in a backup file in the system memory. The expansion card can be removed and replaced and the configuration information stored in the backup file in the system memory can be used to configure the replacement device. The copy of the expansion BIOS in the system memory can be reprogrammed such that it can be implemented to initialize the device on the replacement expansion card without power cycling the system.