probably find amd is better value at the low end.

Ok, i ended up with:

AMD Dualcore 5000+
2 gig of Ram
MSI motherboard with 2 sata ports.

After messing round with it for 3 days, i couldnt get it to load off my brand new WD hdd. After putting it into 2 more running cases, it has come to a conclusion i have a brand new effed up hdd. So going back tomorrow for a ncie warranty check .

I am pretty happy, as well as changing over to a 450w power supply, i spent 310 bucks.

You sure it's the hard drive? Does the bios recognise it? Check there isn't a more up to date bios version. What operating system you using?

put the hdd into 3 different pcs, all do the same thing.

it'll come up into the bios, but it just won't pick it up and boot or read off it. Put in another ide hdd, boots straight away.

i dont spose you have check the master or slave configs on it? Then again i run the older IDE types haha (never updated them), not even sure if the pins on the back indicate their status anymore lol.

EDIT: I have 1 ide and 1 sata and i think the sata still has those pins on the back ;p

__________________
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yeah checked all the usual stuff, checked double checked triple checked. Even by itself as the primary and on its on cable, and a dvd rom on it's own cable does the same thing..

Going to drop it off with the reciept and await the outcome. If it comes out buggered, going to try and swing and pay a bit extra see if i can get another Sata

depending on the OS you might need to set the bios to compatability mode for that drive to get it to recognise the drive properly.

If you have access to another PC try downloading GParted LiveCD (and burn it to a CD) and see if it can see the drive.

My recent build was a PITA due to these settings, I had to update bios, set it to compatability and build the partitions in Gparted before installing windows xp (since removed XP but thats another story)

my main problem was, when i booted the system, it would post, but would not read off the hdd and would come up with media error. dropped in another hdd boom worked straight away.

the main problem i was having, was that when it did the post, generally a pc would come up with an option to boot from cd or hdd. this was just automatically booting to the cd, so everytime i wanted to load windows, it'd go straight to the cd.

Sounds like the drive is friar tucked. Just thought I'd give you a few things to try before waiting until monday to get a replacement drive.

Yeah i've pretty much tried everything, even gave it to my uncle to try round his, dropped into his pc and my cousins, both would just sit and boot off the cd, no hdd support at all.