Posts and boots from CD, but no OS will install

[jablko]

I recently bought a new motherboard and CPU for my desktop so the old components moved down the food chain. In trying to install my former desktop motherboard/cpu in my media center, I've hit a snag ... no matter what OS I try to install, the system powers off just before it actually starts installing.

In both XP and Vista installers, it gets through the hardware recognition but the system powers off by itself before launching the actual installer (in XP, it happens in the blue screen that says "please wait"). Booting Ubuntu and Sabayon Linux live CDs both shut down before entering the graphical environment. I even tried an OSX86 disk and it got to the grey apple screen before halting. All of the OSes I've mentioned have been successfully installed on this motherboard/CPU platform in the past.

I have tried two different power supplies; I have tried different RAM and only one stick at a time. I have taken out the hard drive, used it on another system and conducted a surface scan. I have used both the IGP graphics and a PCI-E card. I have tried with both optimized defaults and safe defaults in the bios. Nothing has made a difference.

I've been building computers and playing with hardware since the days of the 486 and I've never encountered anything like this before. I'm at my wits end, I hope some kind soul can help!

System
Motherboard: Abit Fatal1ty F-l90HD
CPU: E4300 (SL9TB L2)

 

[Old Hippie]

If it were me and I didn't have another HD to try, I'd use Dban to zero the drive.

 

[Fardringle]

Do you have another hard drive you can try with the new system? It sounds like a problem with the hard drive controller on the board motherboard and testing a different drive and drive cable could help confirm this since you have already swapped several other components.

 

[jablko]

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, I don't have another hard drive to try without messing up a working configuration elsewhere. I did change the IDE cable on the DVD drive and and changed SATA cable and channel on the hard drive. I also swapped out the processor for a P4. It's still doing the same thing. I'll try zeroing out the disk next.

Update: Just in case people come by with a similar problem wondering what happened, I'm pretty sure my motherboard SATA controller is the problem. I installed the system with a different motherboard (and by force a different CPU), but the same PSU/drives/video card/etc and it works fine. Since I'd swapped the CPU for an older one before and it still didn't work, it most be something on the motherboard. The weird thing is though that the bios detected the drives fine. Anyway, I'll deal with the older hardware for now.