Error Loading OS

[DarkNovember]

My brother bought a Lite-On DVD-Rom from Newegg. Didn't know it was a SATA drive, but his Foxconn WinFast mobo has SATA connections on it. So, I put it in for him on the #1 SATA connector. Put the case back on, fire it up, and it's giving me the "Error Loading OS" screen. So, I unplugged the DVD-Rom and restarted it. Still doing it. So, I ran the Windows XP Recovery Console. Did a chkdsk /p and /r and it didn't fix it. Then I did a fixboot, and nothing. So, I just decided to reformat the drive. Gets through with the reformat, restarts, then the boot from cd text comes up and goes straight to the cd, doesn't give me the prompt to press any button to boot from cd. So, I can't get it to install WinXP because it just loads the CD. So, I thought maybe it had something to do with the bios, so I reset the bios but it's still doing it. So, now my brother's mad at me for breaking his computer I built, and I'm mad because I can't figure out what I did wrong. Any help on the subject would be great. Thanks

[TwoRails]

Did you set the BIOS to boot from the hard drive and not the optical?

[DarkNovember]

No, I've got it to boot from the optical drive first. It's still just booting from the cd and not letting me continue with the install of windows.

[DarkNovember]

I finally got it to start the WinXP install, but it gave me a Sorry and something about a disk error. I'll try again to see if I can get it to do it so I can copy the message.

[DarkNovember]

Ok, the message I'm getting is this:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check both path and disk hardware. Please check windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

This is actually really frustrating and I don't understand what's going on. I've tried researching but found nothing.

[DarkNovember]

Ok, finally got it. Put in my old Westgate 60gig HD, but it was still doing it, so I unplugged his secondary HD and now it's working. I'll get WinXP installed and go from there. It's funny, his old HD was a 20gig and his comp was always running slow. Maybe now it will be a little better.

[glc]

NEVER install Windows with multiple hard drives connected - wait till it's done before reconnecting data drives. Same thing with USB devices and card readers.

[DarkNovember]

Thanks GLC, did not know that, although I've always done it like that for the past 5 years, but I'll take your advice.

Well, I still have the same problem when I plug in the secondary hard drive. It doesn't have an OS on the secondary, it was just his "My Documents". Is there something corrupt maybe? HD get fried? Should I start the comp, then plug the second HD in after Windows loads (probably not, just asking)???

[glc]

No, do NOT hotplug the drive.

If the drive causes a no boot when installed on the IDE, remove it and use a USB adapter, those are safe to hotplug.

[DarkNovember]

gotcha

any idea why plugging the secondary HD would give me an Error like I'm getting?

[glc]

There's probably something wrong with it.

[DarkNovember]

lol...gee thanks