Need help diagnosing error 0xc00000e9 on new build

Just built a system with a ECS g41T-m7, a q8300 I just bought off the forums, an old IDE ST3160021A I had lying around, and a 1 gig crucial DDR3 stick I had lying around as well.

I'm trying to do a clean install with Windows 7 Pro. Every time I finish the install, the system doesn't boot, instead going to a black screen with Error 0xc00000e9 and a suggestion to run system repair. When I reboot, it shows the same error with a message either about an IO error or that the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.

I ran tests on SeaTools 3 or 4 times with no problems. Installed windows 7, got Error 0xc00000e9 each time. Did a full wipe on SeaTools, tried to install, still got the error.

It's an IDE drive but all the jumper settings should be good (It's set to cable select and connected to master on the IDE cable).

Most of the places I looked seem to suggest that Error 0xc00000e9 is a bad hard drive. I figured that my HDD was shot. Just for kicks, I installed the drive on my other system and installed windows 7. Installed and ran without a hitch (My other system is an i7 920 on an Asrock x58 extreme).

I also ran memtest 86+ and it passed without issues.

I'm lost on where to proceed troubleshooting... Any help?

Thanks!

some thoughts....

set the hard drive to Master or Single Drive setting. I only use cable select on optical drives....for whatever reason I have better results when setting hard drive directly as master or slave.

try a different DVD drive.

I just tried switching the jumper to master and I'm still having the same issue.
I believe I chose the right setting - it's labeled

Master = On
Slave = Off

Click to expand...

As far as using a different DVD Drive, I have tried disconnecting the DVD drive and installing from a USB drive, but I still got the same issue. I'm baffled.

I just threw a SATA hard drive in from another system running windows 8. Booted without an issue, windows is running fine other than missing a few drivers. So looks like this is some sort of configuration issue for the IDE drive...

Ended up swapping the IDE cable out of desperation, guess what, it worked! After all that troubleshooting