New Configuration - Won't Boot Properly

[Stg-Flame]

My roommate just received his parts today to which he constructed the new PC. He is still using his old HDD, PSU, and case, but he bought a new mobo, RAM, CPU, and GPU.

His new specs:

ASUS P5N-D Mobo
Wolfdale e8400 CPU
BFG 9800GTX GPU
OCZ Reaper RAM (4GB)

I am unsure of his HDD and PSU except for that he has a 75GB non-Raptor/Barracuda HDD and that he is still using his old XP from his HDD.

Anyways, when he first put everything together and started it up, it went directly to the BIOS. No Master or Slave Drive detected. So he took it apart again and checked the IDE cables to make sure they were all plugged in correctly. His new mobo came with two IDE ribbon cables, but he used his old ones instead. So he switched the old with the new and started it back up. This time, it went right to "Disk Read Error - Insert the disk into the drive" or something along those lines.

Since then, he has been trying everything he can think of except following what I advise - taking out everything that isn't working to see what is working (ie. his GPU and HDD).

Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? Better yet, does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I am buying/building a new gaming PC very soon and all of this has me a bit worried that I will run into the same problems as him.

 

[jaythespacehound]

That error sounds like a typical can't boot windows error (ie Disk read error - invalid system disk)
After changing hardware he's definitely going to need to reinstall windows...

Can he boot of cd and try reinstalling?
I'm pretty sure everything is working fine...

 

[Stg-Flame]

Can't he just do a Windows Recovery rather than reinstall Windows?

When my mobo/PSU died on me, I was able to do a Windows Recovery and not a reformat. When it was complete, my PC loaded like nothing had changed. It was a grueling four hour process because I had never done it before, but it worked for a new motherboard.

 

[jaythespacehound]

You might be able to do a repair install and get away with it (ie probably)
You can also use the recovery to delete all drivers for his old haardware and it will probably work..
But both of those are much mor elikely to leave you with problems down the line.

At any rate you can't expect windows to boot at present.

 

[montag451]

Just checking that he's got the jumpers the right way round and that CS isn't selected and causing problems.

 

[TheKub]

I'd also check the BIOS you may have to specifically choose to boot from IDE (vs SATA). Jumpers is also a good suggestion. I don't know if WD has changed or not but back in the day if you had a WD drive set as master WITHOUT a slave it would NOT work.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Well, he just bought a new HDD and Vista. He tried to install Vista. It read the installation files and went to the Vista background, but it just stopped right there.