I Have a working 2003 Western Digital PATA HDD I'd like to use with a Compaq SR1810nx motherboard which came with a SATA HDD. Although this PATA HDD is recognized in the BIOS, and all its SMART information; windows cannot boot and I get the blue screen of death which says the PATA HDD might not be configured or terminated correctly. I believe I have the jumpers set correctly. Is there something I should change in BIOS such as access type. Or, can this MOBO only start windows from a SATA HDD?

The motherboard will boot off PATA just fine. It sounds like it is trying to now.

You didn't just take the drive from another system with Windows on it and stuff it in that box and expected it to work without reinstalling Windows did you?

I'm assuming the Compaq board is part of a working system that you've already been using.

If that's the case, change the boot order (in the BIOS setup) to ensure that your SATA hard drive is still the first boot device.

The blue screen you are (probably) getting is a common result of taking a HDD from one computer, installing it in another and trying to boot from it.

Rick - why would he want to set the bios to boot sata first if he wants to boot from the pata drive... I agree with your statement on the blue screen cause though.