Sorry, to clarify - the HDD isn't recognised on any other machine as well as the original one?

ok,buy a new hdd

Not being able to boot from a CD drive, could be caused by a virus called "Virut". Read more at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02..._virut_strain/

HI,I take it you have 2 ide channels if you have try separating the hard drive from the cd rom and checking whether you have the jumpers in the correct position on the rears of them ie hdd master cdrom slave and then connecting them to ide0 & ide1 i,ve found this works

Your old HDD may be set to Slave and that the CD Rom is set to Master. Check the Pin setting. If the CD Drive is on the same cable as the HDD then Change it to the Secondary Cable, as Master Scecondary.

Change or leave the HDD as Master on Primary.

In Bios, check for boot setting. Should be - 1) CD 2)Hdd

The Cd-Rom is probably only a CD-Rom and not a CD/DVD multi drive. You cannot boot from a DVD Boot disk, if this is the case.