Boot probs xp

[rover3500]

Hi everyone.I'm having a big problem booting up.When i installed xp,the 1st time it tries to boot off the HD,(mid install) coloured blocks and characters on the screen and says disk read error.Obvious,u think - HD buggered.Done extensive tests with many testing tools,nothing wrong....only HDAT says HD is hung and needs resetting.Tried resetting and initialising,but same thing.I have 2 drives,one sata2 maxtor 250gb,one maxtor 40gb ide.Tried disconnecting 40gb but didn't help.(Always sets ide drive as c: drive which is a bit annoying,have had to disconnect b4,just so os uses sata drive as c.But thats another story...).When i boot off a cd, os works fine,no probs at all,until i try to boot again,then same problem with disk read error and colour blocks etc.Have tried everything i can think of,replacing boot foles(ntldr etc) changing boot.ini to different partitions/drives,but no use.Only conclusion i can think of is that HD controller on board dodgy,but i'm hoping someone else can help. M/B is MSI K8T Neo2 v.2 with amd64 3800+ x2. Thanx.Had a prob a while ago,and eventually traced it to a split in ide cable,but not this time.

 

[rover3500]

Needed to set my os drive to active in computer manager.Silly me!