Windows just won't boot on any hard drive

[nexere]

Hey, so iv just put 2gether bits from old pc's iv had

E6600
2gb ddr2 ram
200gb ide hard drive
40gb ide hard drive
Some old low end pcie graphics card
Ide dvd drive

So, i get windows to install from a usb stick after finding out it won't install from an ide dvd drive because of drivers.
install goes fine, and very fast thanx to the usb stick.
but after installing it restarts to boot windows, and i get "disk read error occurred " "Press ctrl-alt-delete to restart"
Everything in bios show correctly.
it can't be the hard drive because i have tried 2 now, and i know the jumpers are right
Windows dvd startup recovery says everythings fine and the files are there.

But then again Ubuntu live cd os runs fine, but has the same problem when i install it.

Im starting to think the motherboards just buggered, otherwise im realy at a loss as to whats wrong with it.

 

[hwangchan]

Im surprised you could boot from usb on a motherboard with IDE technology.. so props to you for that.

So if i understand current situation..

windows is installed on hdd, and dvd drive is recognized and boots to dvd.
but dvd couldn't install from fresh?

windows recovery cd scans and finds no issue when ran from dvd drive.

ubuntu also can run from livecd but fails to run from hdd.

In bios, can you see both HDD's as boot options? the error almost sounds like the early sata problems where windows didn't have the drivers to install or recognize hdd drivers. Also, confirm in BIOS the proper HDD is listed as primary boot devices.

Speaking of the ide board booting with usb.. did you have to flash bios update to enable this? Just want to understand all this pc has been subject to.

 

[nexere]

Yeah, i can't install windows from the cd compleatly, it asks for dvd drive drivers, which aparently is a known bug when installing from an ide dvd drive on alot of motherboards.

I can get it to boot the usb stick (didn't flash the bios or anything it just worked)
to run the windows install which all happens like it should, seams the files are there when i use the windows start recovery/dos shows the files.

All the hard drive/dvd drives are seen in bios, and it appears to be a perfect install it just doesn't seam to boot it, just says disk "read error occurred " "Press ctrl-alt-delete" to restart where it would normally say no operating system found if it had no operating system installed.

Its an old pc thats been around a while (safe indoors in its case)
and it has the right boot order, im only doing it with 1 hard drive in at a time so no conflicts or anything should, and im not using sata at all, everythings ide.

 

[hwangchan]

Very odd..

I know youve tried multiple HDD's but id still recomend a chkdsk to make sure.

After that... it seems like a problem with the motherboard recognizing the disk drives.. maybe check to make sure you have most recent bios / firmware for the motherboard. Its kind of a long shot though, not sure what would allow it to see in bios but not recognize drives during POST on IDE...