my girlfriends going to kill me!!!

in the first one move the SATA drive to the top.

right to ease your pain further, judging by its components.. 1) floppy drive 2) ide drive 3) Cd drive.. its a prity old computer.. so something could have just taken an age related dump

well personally i always stick my primary HDD at the top, no need to spool up the CD drive on every boot if you dont need to boot from a CD, i just change it if and when i need to boot from a CD/DVD.

There isnt a "correct" boot order as such

^ +1 on hd first. I think this makes a faster boot.

asus mobo has extreme tweaker. he may want to reset to factory defaults.

lol like i said initially the act of unplugging plug in and play devises can not and will not cause harm :)

its a very old computer with old components, it could just let go, maybe it has.

id just turn it off and leave it as it is, and then when said gf comes home and tries to use it, you can try all the things weve suggested in front of her and youd look like quite the intellectual hero

your a bit screwed if she replies "yeah it does it all the time just give it a kick and its fine"