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This sounds like a problem with the MB's bios not reading the drives correctly. This most often occurs with hard drive/CD drive jumpers being set to CS - Cable Select, and the drives' position on the IDE cable determining which drive is C: or D:, master or slave, etc. I've found that the CS setting is not implemented properly from one drive manufacturer to another, from one drive series to another, and sometimes not by the MB manufacturer. I've fought a motley collection of personal PC's and friend's PC's during upgrades and repairs, and the drive master/slave setting problem almost always appears.

I've learned to jumper the master drive as master, the slave drive as slave, and try different drive cables until the bios correctly and instantly recognizes each drive. I keep both 40 and 80 conductor ribbon cables on hand and swap them until the drives work right.

If the bios can't read the drives correctly there will be a hang up during boot while the bios routines try to figure out what's connected on those IDE cables.

This sounds like a problem with the MB's bios not reading the drives correctly.

The machine boots up fine and even starts Windows. Then I get the Boot disk inaccessible error.