Can't install vista after changing mobo!!!

[smellybumlove]

hi guys,

i just changed my p5b-vm to a p5k premium, i have been trying to do a fresh install of vista but it just doesnt work!.

if i try and format my drive it just goes quiet and seems as if its doing something but its not so i have to reboot after 1-2 hours.
if i try to install on it, it will do one of 2 things:.

1) install all files then take hours to get to 9% and just sit there.
2) sits at 0% on the install.

i have tried messing around with the bios, changing ram around, moving sata cables, changing sata cables.
i have essentially stripped it down one by one and still i get the same result.

i dont have a floppy drive so cant flash bios .

my hard drive is the samsung 320gb 10,000rpm 16mb buffer.

any ideas????, it was all working fine on my last mobo!

[smellybumlove]

forgot to mention, i have also put the latest raid drivers on to a usb and attempted to add them before the install with the 'add driver' option.
it finds them and seems to install them but nothing happens :-(.

also on the add driver thing if i select my hard drive it says it cant read it and requires formatting, then it cant format it and says to check all cables are secure.
THEY ARE SECURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Craig321]

Possibly a faulty motherboard.

[Agent]

Run memtest from UBCD (google it) to check everything is fine with your system.

[smellybumlove]

please dont laugh.........

i have been on this since 3pm NON stop!.

turns out that 2 of the 4 sata cables which came with the board are faulty. i just chanced the 3rd one before i declared defeat and now its working!.

is this not the most stupid thing ever, i am so piss3d im calling asus tommorrow

[IBM]

That kind of thing makes me scream....you think you've tested every eventuality when it turns out that one of the replacement test elements is faulty too....or a combination of two different elements are faulty and changing just one of the two isn't sufficient to resolve the issue.

One of the reasons I don't like building PCs anymore...

[Fornowagain]

please dont laugh.........

i have been on this since 3pm NON stop!.

turns out that 2 of the 4 sata cables which came with the board are faulty. i just chanced the 3rd one before i declared defeat and now its working!.

is this not the most stupid thing ever, i am so piss3d im calling asus tommorrow

I was about to suggest the sata cables, I read the same thing in the Newegg comments for the board. Its a good place to read customer feedback even if you dont live in the states.

[aidanjt]

SATA cables supplied with motherboards are regularly crap.

[smellybumlove]

well guess what happened today...........

got my q6600, changed it over with no problems.
it booted up no problems, just had to reset bios and off it went loading windows.............or not, it refused to boot just kept going to a black screen.

so i tryed to repair the installation, that didnt go well as it didnt do a thing.
it los my hard drive again like last time and i changed cables once more!.

it was doing the 100% then 0% hanging thing, after 3-4 hours of repeated attempts i decided to partition the drive and install on the small 20gb partition.

it worked!!!!!!!!!, only now i have 20gb drive and a 280gb drive!.

any ideas how to get my drive back as one without reinstalling again?