Can't boot Windows 7. Is it a problem in my BIOS?

[epoloski]

I'm confused! I just finished building my first computer, and I'm pretty much certain I have everything hooked and plugged in (both sata / data cables for my optical drive / hard drive, my front umbilical cords... Everything), but I can't seem to boot Windows 7. I'm using an OEM copy of Windows 7. I've set my boot options to: #1: (my optical drive), and #2: (my hard drive), and I've switched my optical drive settings to IDE and to AHCI to see whether I could boot Windows from either.

Here's the problem in question: Whenever I start my computer, I'm brought to a "please insert boot media" screen if I don't choose to enter my BIOS. Okay... I insert the Windows 7 DVD and "strike a key" as it says. After about thirty seconds, the message re-appears. It's absolutely perplexing. I purchased a brand-new optical drive to see if that would alleviate the problem, but it didn't -- it only increased the time frame by which the "please insert boot media" message re-appears from roughly 3 - 5 seconds to over 30 seconds.

 

[macusn]

Is your hard drive being recognized in the BIOS correctlly?

mac

 

[jlr860]

Try booting a linux anything, make sure the optical drive is in SATA port 0, check for BIOS updates on another computer, then yell at the screen if nothing changes.

 

[Guest]

first press the del key (or the appropriate one according to your manual) to enter the bios and set your HD as the first boot device; there is to reason to keep the optical as first.

also if you switched to AHCI after you installed windows; it will not boot. the drivers need installed while installing Win7. if windows was installed while in IDE, set it back to IDE to boot into windows and edit the registry according to this:
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/271218-switch-ahci-ide-tutorial-howto.html
(win7 is the same as vista.)