Can't boot after installing new PCI Sata Controller Card

You may be correct, but what version of Windows?

This MAY be a driver issue, or it might just be a matter of boot priority order.

In order to boot from any HDD, Windows must have a driver for that device and its controller "built in". Up to Win XP it had such drivers for floppy disk, PATA HDD's and ATAPI optical disk, but not for AHCI devices (which is what a SATA HDD is). Beginning with Vista, though, Windows added the built-in driver for AHCI devices. So, IF your Windows is Vista or later, it should have a driver for this type of device and its controller. To check for sure, contact Tech Support at SYBA and ask exactly what driver is required and whether your Windows should have it already. Also ask specifically whether your system should be able to BOOT from a SATA unit attached to this card in a PCI slot. I saw some information for SOME Syba cards indicating that they are bootable and that recent Windows has a driver already, but those were not specifically for the card you have.

Even if all that is OK, you still can have a problem with drivers if they are confused, and if your boot priority is not set right.

First, the Windows you have already installed on your HDD is expecting that a HDD will be found to boot from connected to a particular SATA port of the mobo. That is no longer that case. So, as a first step, I suggest you try to force the system to find your HDD in the new location, and the best start is to deprive your system of any storage device so it will forget the previous information. Try this sequence.
(a) Shut down and disconnect your HDD, your optical drive, and remove the Syba PCI card. Turn on the machine and let it fail to find any way to boot.
(b) Shut down. Install the Syba card and your optical drive only. Boot up and go immediately into BIOS Setup. Check that the BIOS sees that optical drive. Next, look closely at the SATA ports of the mobo. Is there any option to DISable them? If so, do that so the BIOS will ignore them and look only at other options. Now go to where you set the Boot Priority Sequence, and specify the optical unit as the first and only boot device. SAVE and EXIT, and the machine should try to boot from that optical drive. Unless you have a bootable disk in there (like a Windows Install disk or some diagnostic utility disk) it will fail, but you should be able to tell whether it tried to boot from the optical drive. If it did, then the system was able to direct the boot process to the Syba card and its attached optical unit. This initial phase of booting is entirely done by the BIOS, and does not involve Windows.
(c) Shut down and now connect your HDD to the Syba card. If I understand correctly, that card has only one SATA port, so you will not be able to leave your optical unit connected. Boot directly into BIOS Setup again, and check that the HDD is detected. Go to Boot Priority Sequence and set the HDD as the only boot device, then SAVE and EXIT. The machine should try this time to boot from the HDD attached to the card. If it does, and IF Windows has a built-in driver for this card and its SATA HDD unit, is should work. Watch very carefully for indications whether the system does try to boot from the HDD, and any possible error messages. Even a Windows logo followed by a failure would tell you that it did try to boot there.

Let us know what results you get from this. Good luck!

The driver should already be included for Windows 7, but it most likely isn't set to be active at boot time. Does it boot from a bootable CD or DVD?

My guess from the original post is that OP can't get it to boot from a bootable CD because even the optical drive is not working now. I was hoping that my suggestion for getting rid of all traces of the mobo SATA controller system might get the optical unit to work when connected to the new card. If it does, that's progress. Putting a known BOOTABLE disk in the optical drive, like a Windows Install disk, would be a good test of that.

May I suggest you try a different bootable controller?

Interesting info. I don't quite understand why it would not load Linux from what you believe is a bootable CD. But the performance with your HDD connected tells me that the BIOS successfully directed the boot process to the storage device connected to your card, but then Windows could not load from that HDD. I suspect again that the root of this problem is that the Windows installed on your HDD does not have the correct driver installed to access the HDD when connected to that controller. Very likely your Windows has the built-in driver for the mobo's SATA ports installed and is still trying to use that, and those hardware resources.

I can make one suggestion, BUT this involves making changes to your Windows installation on the HDD. If that goes wrong, you could make that unit unusable. So IF you want to try this, give serious though to making a clone of your HDD first, even if only to a different HDD that is used only temporarily for this. Then you could always restore to the original if this does not work.

So, the process I suggest here uses a standard Windows Install disk tool called Repair Install. Its function is to NOT do a normal Windows Install on your HDD. Instead it surveys the hardware currently in your system and the drivers currently installed under Windows on the boot device (HDD). Then it tries to resolve any mis-matches by replacing unused device drivers with the ones that are necessary but missing. When the process is finished you exit out of the Install routines, remove the CD from the optical drive, and reboot.

The big practical problem here is that you need both a HDD and an optical drive attached and working, and you have only one SATA port on the new card. Now, that card also has an eSATA port, and I presume that both ports can be active simultaneously. Further, although there are a few differences between the signals from an eSATA port and a "normal" SATA port, most SATA devices can work with both signal systems. The smaller problem is that the connectors for the eSATA port are not the same as a standard internal SATA cable. So, if you can arrange to connect one of your two devices to the eSATA port of the card, you may be able to get both of them working and available as bootable devices.

Then you need your original Windows Install CD, or at least CD with the same version of Windows on it. You place that disk in the optical drive and boot immediately into BIOS Setup, where you go to the Boot Priority sequence and set it to boot from the optical unit first, and the HDD second. Then SAVE and EXIT, and the machine should boot from the Install CD in the optical drive. Do NOT run a normal Install! Find the Repair Install option and run that to resolve driver problems. At the time this is done, you should already have DISabled the mobo SATA controllers and ports, which you have done, I believe. That way only the Syba added card in the PCI slot will exist for Windows Install to "see".

IF this works, it may install the proper driver for the Syba card and set Windows properly to find your HDD on the SATA port on that card. Then it might actually boot from that system.

The system image is for that HP system with the original SATA controller, not the one that you added. Can you try a fresh install?