windows 7 boot disk won't boot

Sorry it took so long to get back to this - I verified the disk is good by starting it in my laptop - then i took my old HD from another system which has Windows Server 2000 installed on it and plugged the cable into the IDE port on the MB. It tries to boot up in Win 2000 but locks up the keyboard so I can't Ctl-Alt-Del to enter a password (assuming I can remember it). Then I unhooked all 3 drives and turned it on and it boots up on the Win 7 disk in the drive but as soon as I hook up any HD it won't book from the install disk no matter what I set the BIOS to (CD - 1st boot device). Is there something else in the BIOS I need to set?

Now I'm thinking its bad ram or bad MB like nobus said.

I swapped out both ram chips (DDR3) so its not the ram. Then I took the fan off, reseated the processor and same thing. Guess I'll order a new MB. It always seemed to run hot. It would shut down sometimes from overheating so I started turning it on only when I needed to use it. I should find a better way to cool it next time.

The MB I have is a Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H. I found a UD3H on Amazon for $99. Would that work with the same processor?

thanks nobus - I'll be assigning points soon.

I'm not sure I understand your last comment - its a CD/DVD meaning it can read both kinds of media. It seems to read the disk fine when there's no HD hooked up because the windows 7 install goes all the way to where it asks you what partition to put the windows directory on. So I don't think there's anything wrong with the drive itself. My problem is its all SATA which is a problem because I don't have any other SATA MBs or drives to swap it out with. Up until now I always had a previous machine with similar arch (ISA, IDE) that I could swap parts to eliminate the bad board or drive or whatever.

OK I'm downloading it now and reading the FAQs. I'll let you know what I find out.

I downloaded and installed the UBCD program and don't really understand what its supposed to do. (make and install or boot disk?) Then I do a search for UBCD iso download and get nothing but advertising and download buttons taking me everywhere but to what I'm looking for. Is there anyone that has a direct link to download the UBCD iso?

OK I think I understand. XP is just the OS you use to boot into the test machine. I assume it will read the NTFS drives on the Vista machine.

The xp boot cd I'm using is a Dell and they have a fix for some errors I get when building. The fix doesn't work.

ERROR: A required privilege is not held by the client.
ERROR: A required privilege is not held by the client.
ERROR: A required privilege is not held by the client.
SeSecurityPrivilege : Access is denied.

WARNING :Unable to set SeSecurityPrivilege privilege. This privilege may be requ
ired.
Unable to open  and get security descriptor from hkey_local_machine\dell\control
set001\services - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\dell\controlset001\services
Current object hkey_local_machine\dell\controlset001\services\iastor\ will not b
e processed

Select allOpen in new window

I'm going to have to order a different XP or 2k3 install disk. There is a known problem with the Dell XP install.

>>  I downloaded and installed the UBCD program   <<  WRONG
it is not a program, it is an ISO file you download, to make a cd
burn the iso with an iso burning tool
then boot from it to run diags

Yeah but where? Everytime I click on a download button I get someone trying to sell me some utility. Can you send me a link?

OK, I found it. Its at UBCD downloads at the bottom of the page.

i even posted a direct link above -if you care to read....
and on the home page it is in the pink section on the left side of the page : downloads

OK thanks nobus. The 2nd link is a dead one but I read over the whole website and its a great product but I need either a better XP install disk or a 2003 disk.

it works for me ok ..