Didn't have access to a SATA optical drive, but after rummaging around my basement I found yet another optical IDE drive, this time it was only CD-RW/DVD-ROM though, not a DVD burner...it worked for some reason even though it's much older than the others I tried. Installing W7 on it now though...
The problem: I put a Windows 7 installation DVD in my CD\DVD-RW drive, but after POSTing, I get the message "Boot disk failure, insert system disk and press enter". It is a legit copy of Windows 7. It's not that anyway, as I also tried a copy of a legit XP install CD and got the same message...