I ruined something... Was it the hard drive? Help extremely appreciated.

luke321

Honorable
Mar 28, 2013
2
0
10,510
Hey guys.

So the other day I tried to install Windows 8 on a computer that I now realized isn't fit to run Windows 8, and not only that but I believe that the boot disk that I created could've been corrupt (I burnt it off of a Mac that is notorious for not burning correctly). I know, I'm an idiot.

So motherboard is the Asus M2a-VM, which I'm guessing has no business running Windows 8. After the installation failed, I booted back into the installation disk tried to use the repair tools on the Windows 8 disk to repair the hard drive, but it kept giving errors. So, I used the command prompt on the disk to clean and reformat the drive.

Now when I boot to the drive it gives me an error saying that it's missing a file and when I try to boot to my XP disk (the corrupt Windows 8 disk barely works sometimes) it says "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter".

I would try to install via flash drive but my BIOS doesn't allow booting into a USB.

So, I feel like I'm in a heap of trouble and I just need to know where to start. Is it the hard drive that I ruined? Or is the motherboard ruined also? I'll try to provide more information if needed.
 
That's an AM2/AM2+ board, I don't see why Windows 8 wouldn't work on it. Are you sure if you connect a bootable USB drive in the PC, then go to the BIOS or choose boot order, you can't boot from USB. Sometimes, it doesn't say boot from USB but when a bootable USB drive is in, you can choose it from the boot order.
 

luke321

Honorable
Mar 28, 2013
2
0
10,510


Thanks for helping out :)
I've tried changing the priority with the USB plugged in to no avail. It shows up under the hard disks but I can't change the priority of the hard disks (I click plus and minus and it doesn't do anything).