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.
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.