Just built a new computer, it won't read HD or DVD drive

I assume this is a fresh install since you have not been able to get the optical drive to work. This would mean you hard drive is blank at this point. I would be surprised if opening the optical drive would make the screen go black, that would be hard to explain. Most likely it is just timing. If there is no OS installed the machine would go through the POST and bios pretty quick and the look for an operating system. First you have to set your boot priority to the optical drive first, then the hard drive. If you have more than one optical drive make sure you have the right one selected. F10, save and exit. This will restart the computer and you should get the beep for the POST, then the bios screen, run through the system check, and then you should see "hit any key to boot from the CD. That should get things rolling. Remember to go back after the install and reverse the boot order or your computer will always try to start from the drive.
I would also make sure you do not have any USB drives connect, in fact it is best to wait to connect any USB devices with the exception if your keyboard and mouse until the install is complete.
In regards to your drive not opening, hard to say why. There is a brief period after turning the power on when the bios is checking the drive and it will not open but otherwise it should open. Is the drive indicator light coming on, are you sure you have power to the drive?
Hope that helps.

ParkerB said:

I assume this is a fresh install since you have not been able to get the optical drive to work. This would mean you hard drive is blank at this point. I would be surprised if opening the optical drive would make the screen go black, that would be hard to explain. Most likely it is just timing. If there is no OS installed the machine would go through the POST and bios pretty quick and the look for an operating system. First you have to set your boot priority to the optical drive first, then the hard drive. If you have more than one optical drive make sure you have the right one selected. F10, save and exit. This will restart the computer and you should get the beep for the POST, then the bios screen, run through the system check, and then you should see "hit any key to boot from the CD. That should get things rolling. Remember to go back after the install and reverse the boot order or your computer will always try to start from the drive.
I would also make sure you do not have any USB drives connect, in fact it is best to wait to connect any USB devices with the exception if your keyboard and mouse until the install is complete.
In regards to your drive not opening, hard to say why. There is a brief period after turning the power on when the bios is checking the drive and it will not open but otherwise it should open. Is the drive indicator light coming on, are you sure you have power to the drive?
Hope that helps.

Yes, it's a fresh install on a blank hard drive. I have only one hard drive and one optical drive, and it's set to default boot to the optical drive.

I don't see a "system check" option in my bios, but I can boot directly to the optical drive, and when I do it gives me the "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected" error.

The optical drive's indicator light is coming on, so it's definitely getting power, just not opening when I push the button.

essenbe said:

Have you gone to bios and set optimized defaults? Then set the boot order, and enable the sata controllers usually in advanced options. Asrock, by default sets them as IDE devices, I believe. Before you install Windows you can set it as AHCI if you prefer, and should if installing an SSD. When you set your boot order, set the DVD as 1st boot device, insert the DVD, save and exit. Your BIOS will need to 'see' the hard drive and the DVD drive to do this.

You mentioned trying to boot from the hard drive. It should not boot if there is a Windows install from another system. All of the drivers will be wrong.

I've enabled SATA controllers, set it to AHCI, set the DVD to 1st boot device, inserted the DVD, saved and exited, restarted the computer and it returns the same exact error.

Also this is a new hard drive, so there's definitely nothing on it.

Will do, thanks for your help!

My apologies, when I referred to the system check I was referring to the process the bios goes through when it is checking your system configuration. Used to be these went slow enough to read and one could confrim that all of the components were detected. Now it goes so fast I have to check the bios to make sure all of my devices are detected. As long as you have the option to set the first boot device as the optical drive it is likely your drive is connected correctly. Booting from the USB is a good idea if you have access to another machine. I have had occassional problems in the past with a system recognizing a Blu-ray player in the past. so much so that I always build new machines with a DVD drive. If that is the case it will go away once Windows is installed. If yo have trouble booting from the USB (which you should not) I would consider swapping out the Blu-ray for a humble DVD drive.