I aquired  a pretty new (6 month old) PC last summer.  Compaq.  Decent motherboard and AMD Sempron CPU, 120 GB HD, and a 250 watt power supply.

The PC at the time was having problems.  It would give a "Disk Read Error: Press Control Alt Delete" before booting up windows.  So I simply reformated the HD and reinstalled Windows.  Problem solved.  For like 3 days.  Then the same problem occured.  So I replaced the HD with a smaller (20 GB used HD) and tried to reinstall the operating system again to fix the problem.  After letting me reinstall Windows Vista from a boot CD I created from the motherboard, I again thought I had fixed it.  Nope.  Lasted two days.  Then the same problem.

So, I came to the conclusion through friends and scouring the internet that the problem must have been somewhere with the motherboard.  So I replaced the mobo with a brand new MTI mobo with a AMD x2 64 5400+ cpu and 2 GB of ram.  A huge upgrade to what was in there before.  With the new equipment, I also upgraded the Power Supply to a brand new 350 watter.

Now I am trying to install Windows, but same error comes up

I have swapped the order of the devices in Bios.  I've put the HDD first then the DVD/CD drive.  Then I swapped them and saved in BIOS to DVD/CD drive then the HDD.  Both ways creates this same problem!  I also tried running disks I made for a free operating system called PC-BSD, but they will not boot up and install that OS either, because I keep getting this same error.

I have checked the Sata cables and even replaced them even though BIOS on this new mobo recognizes both the DVD/CD drive and the HDD.

I don't know what to do. 

Any help would be appreciated.

All I wanna do is try to wipe out the HDD and install this PC-BSD OS as it looks pretty snazzy for a free OS!

Thanks in advance!

What components have you NOT replaced?  What're you using that's leftover from the old system?

Sarkazmo

What GFX card do you have?

To me it sounds like you have a too small power supply for the GFX card. 250W was enough for a 3x86 but I can't believe you could even start the computer. 350W is a little better but it all depends on the GFX card, my card demands 600W (it's a GTX 280 so it's a bit extreme however).

My first guess would be that the problem was the SATA cable but it seems like you replaced it. It would be unlikely that the MB was the problem even though it would have been a good idea to change from SATA 1 to SATA 2 just for test.

But to me it just sounds like it wont get enough power. Can you give us allt the hardware you have on it or post a Dxdiag? (Start->run->write "dxdiag" and chose to save it as a text file or copy out the hardware stats and paste them in here).