Wont boot from usb unless sata set to raid mode, then can't find hdd.

Hi,

My build is as follows
Gigabyte 970A-DS3P Motherboard
AMD FX6300 CPU
8gb HYPER X FURY RAM
Gigabyte geforce gtx 750ti graphics card
320gb hitachi sata hdd
evga 500w white power supply

Heres my problem.
Its a new build and everything was going perfectly fine until after i installed the motherboard drivers and graphics card drivers. It would restart and work fine until next time it was shut down and started again. I would then get the start up repair loop where anything you chose took you to start up repair, safe mode, vga mode, start windows normally etc all went to start up repair.

So i let it repair and it restored me back to before the drivers were installed. So i then tried installing the drivers through windows instead of from the manufacturers website. Same again all worked fine for a while then a day later it froze on me and i had to restart - led me back to start up repair. Except this time it can't repair, it said restart to fix the errors or something but then goes straight back to start up repair over and over again.

So i turned the computer off and was going to try to access cmd to fix any boot errors and so on. But now when it starts up I get drive read error press ctrl alt delete to restart. I thought id try to do a clean install of windows from the usb i originally installed from. But i still get a drive read error from that when i start up, even if i disconnect the hard drive and select the usb from boot options. So i messed around with the settings in the bios and the only thing that will get the usb to boot is changing sata mode to RAID instead of IDE which seems strange to me as the usb isn't even connected to a sata port. Nonetheless it takes me to the windows installation but then it can't find the hdd to install to, even though when in raid mode if i go to the bios it shows the hdd and as it starts it lists the hdd as healthy with the disk size etc.

Any help would be appreciated, for the record i am currently doing a safe erase through the raid rom option utility to see if it will recognise the drive after that. I really can't understand any of it, how the drivers for the graphics card/motherboard were causing a startup repair loop in the first place, how after turning it off and back on again i then ended up with drive read error, or how the usb will only boot if sata is in raid mode. It is truly baffling me.

Thanks

Yeah i thought as much, but ahci doesn't make any difference, it was set to ide by default and that seemed to work fine until the drivers caused the error. AHCI still gives drive read error.

Also I've tried downloading windows 7 iso from microsoft site so its just the trial copy but i know its not the iso.

Any more suggestions? lol

AddRAM said:

It should be set to AHCI, not raid, not IDE.

Could be a bad install DVD, if you have the iso file, make another.

Keep trying :)

Sorry forgot to quote on my reply.
Like i said ahci mode still gives drive read error. The only way i can get the usb to boot is in RAID mode which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I'm 86% through doing a secure erase in raid option rom utility so I'm hoping the hard drive will show up in the windows installation. Will post back with results. But do you have any idea whats gone wrong here, Ive never had problems like this with a build before. Faulty install of windows? Faulty hdd or motherboard. Seems to me it could be anything.

Ok now it wont even boot the usb in raid mode, neither in ahci or ide . I am at a complete loss here please help.

AddRAM said:

Redo the usb drive.

I use wintobootic.

WiNToBootic bootable usb drive windows vista/7/8 - Bootable USB | Bootable USB

Are you using a UEFI or Legacy Bios ?

I believe it is a uefi bios but how can i be sure? When i press f12 during start up to choose boot options it says uefi along the top of the screen somewhere.

At the moment I'm on the mac so I'm unsure how to make a new bootable usb on mac that will work on the pc?

Thanks for all the help by the way I'm really stuck on this one.

My next step is to take the computer to work tomorrow and start testing parts in the computer in my office lol.