PC does not recognize Hard drive on boot up

I restarted my computer the other day and when it started to reboot I had a black screen for about 5 minutes. I could hear the fans running and the power light was on. Then finally the BIOS screen came up. Then it shut off. I started it again. Waited another few minutes for the BIOS screen. Then the BIOS told me there was no HDD and asked me to use a boot disk. So I shut off the PC opened it up and reseated all my cables and reset the BIOS. I then started it up again and went into BIOS set up. I check to see if BIOS was recognizing my HDD and it was. I could see the model # of the HDD.

Well I decided to try a repair with the Windows XP disk and it told me that it couldnt install Windows because there was no Hard Drive. So I went to Best Buy and bought a NEW HDD. Took it home and installed it. When I hit the power button I noticed the DVD drive light was blinking indicating it was booting as normal. but the Hard Drive light blink once then no more. Then I got the no Hard Drive message from BIOS again.

Well I tried everything that I could think of and It still not working. Im just a novice techie. I thought I would come and ask the pros if you could help me.
So wadda say? Got any advice for me?

PC Specs are:
Windows XP
Intel Celeron D 3.2 Ghz
2GB Ram
320GB Seagate barracuda HDD

 

Is it a SATA or IDE HD? Is there only one HD installed?

 

:waveWell if you installed a new hard drive and still get the same results it's pretty obvious it's not the hard drive. Could your bios need updating? There could be a problem with the mother board ... hope not ... but that is a possibility ... I would recommend hot cpu tester to check the mobo ... majorgeek has a link to it ... Sound like some kind of hardware issue to me ...

 

It is SATA

I would try the tester but do I need to install it in windows first or can I run it from my DVD drive on boot? Because I cant boot to windows at all.

 

Try changing your sata lead if it's not that could be a mother board issue.

 

I'm afraid you do ... can you get into save mode at all?:confused