Well I am having the same problem no matter which drives I use. I have several that I have tried, and they all seem to work fine. I have tried different ide cables and they seem to be good too. All cd drives and hdd work fine in a different box and am able to install everything just fine. But when put in main box with abit at8 32x it dosen't work anymore I had this system running great for about a year now with no issues and no crashes, but now I had a recent crash it seemed to be after I installed the new media player that it went to s---. Now when I do a reinstall of windows it has problems pulling files off the cd drive during setup first time it stoped at 17% and after retrying several times I got it to 70%. its not the xp cd cause I can take the same disk, hdd, cd drive in different comp and it works fine. I can put a pre installed hdd and it will boot to the desktop np but soon as I try to install anything it has problems and wont install anything. All devices are detected in bios. I can't even transfer files from one hdd to the other or it will crash after about 30 sec to 1 min. sorry for my sloppy post but I'm in a hurry. sys spec abit at8-32x opteron 185, 2 gig Corsair xms, x1900xtx, Silverstone 560w with 40 amp on the 12v rail which has been very stable. From what I can tell it's the ide port or somthing on the mb freaking out but any other ideas would help before I purchase a new one, Thanks.

Have you checked the BIOS settings ? maybe ATA/UDMA are not set correctly ?

Ya all of bios is as it should be, everything shows up. like I said I had to take the hdd out and install windows on a different box and then put it back in the rig with the problem. It boots up fine and posts everything, but as soon as I try to run any software or program they will crash. And will sometimes reboot or bsod but will idle on desktop and not crash at all.

"Well I am having the same problem no matter which drives I use". I don't have a clue about which problem you have. From reading the rest of your post it appears you may have moved your boot HDrive from one computer to another. Is this correct?
Check hardware listings in Device manager. You MAY have hardware from two machines configured and assigned resources. Best to check this while in Safe Mode.
If this isn't your problem you need to start from the beginning, when you have more time.

Yes I did swap my boot hdd from one pc to another just to get windows installed, I did this just to see if it would boot up at all. I made sure The hardware is all configured correctly. But I think the source of the problem is deeper, cause even if I remove all but one drive then reformat and try to install windows it won't let me. At the start of the setup when windows first starts to copy files it acts as if something is wrong with the windows cd and will not copy the files. The disc is fine and worked great in the other pc and I also tried a different windows disc to make sure. For some reason it will not let any kind of file transfer occur or it will hang or sometimes crash the pc.

Has this system ever ran properly? Is this a new build? Is all the hardware compatible. I am not very familiar with operton chips but they aren't listed as compatible with this MB. Is the graphics card/ cards compatible with this board? Same goes for the RAM.

Yes as I said in my first post. I had the system running great without error or crash for about a year, played many games on it and scored 13k 05 mark and 7k 06 mark> Then recently installed a new media player and then next day it crashed.

If you formatted the drive ("tried Many drives") This has nothing to do with a media player or with Windows. You have some type of hardware issue. If you really suspect the IDE controller then try running the Boot drive off the secondary controller.
You might want to clear the CMOS and then enter and reset as required. Be sure to enable the setting for PnP aware OS. Also select the first display type. You could also run a test on your memory. A defective piece of hardware could mess things up so try removing or disconnecting unnecessary hardware for testing purposes. Remember to set jumpers on IDE drives correctly.

Ya all the jumpers are correct, I've been building gaming computers for a few years now so I know how to set them up. I didn't say it was a problem with the os or the media player at any point. I did try clearing cmos also and that didn't help, though I'll never install that player again. I just stated the fact that it was the last thing I did before it crashed. If you read my first post you would see that I suspect that it is my mother board, I just wanted some second opinions on weather or not that was it.

Well my last response #7 was an attempt to help you troubleshoot. I meant to check jumper settings AFTER disconnecting all unnecessary drives for test purposes. I simply stated that I didn't think your problems stem from the media player of the OS. In order to determine if the MBoard is faulty you need to get the hardware down to the minimum. That is what I suggested in #7.

ya but I said before, I already put minimum hardware in. As I said I tried several different drives aswell to make sure they were all ok i said in the start.
[I have several that I have tried, and they all seem to work fine. I have tried different ide cables and they seem to be good too.] All cd drives and hdd work fine in a different box and am able to install everything just fine. from my first post if u read it... All drives and cables have all been tested individually. And sorry I don't mean to be an or anything, but I just felt like I've already said that I've tried what your telling me to do. Sorry if I don't describe things perfectly.

You didn't state wheather you tried your OTHER IDE controller. There are TWO on that MBoard. If you suspect a bad controller that would be the next logical step. There is no magic here. If you are positive you have exhausted all possible troubleshooting then go replace the MB. I ask questions and you argue and point out that you have answered them but your answers are vague. While it is possible that the MB is defective the computer still runs. This indicates to me there may be other issues. PSU, overheating, graphics card, defective periphial devices, incorrect BIOS settings, corrupted BIOS, etc.