[WhydoIask?]

I just finished building a gaming PC, and the disk drive will not load. I went into the BIOS to make sure the boot order was right (not that it matters, there is no OS on the disk drive.) When I turn it on, it POSTs, then the motherboard splash screen pops up, then it gets to the to the single blinking line, where any second "press any key to boot from CD" should appear, but it doesn't. That line just keeps blinking. The weird part is that it doesn't seem to go farther. if it skipped over the CD drive, wouldn't it go through everything and proclaim that there is no OS?

What can I do to get the drive to work?

PS: I've tried my new blue-ray combo drive, and an old cd/dvd-rom drive. neither works.
PPS: the motherboard is an MSI X79MA-GD45

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Just to clarify a couple of things;
disk drive = CD/DVD or optical drive.
HDD = hard drive.

Are both detected in the BIOS.
Is the optical drive set as the first boot device.

[phillpower2]

Just to clarify a couple of things;
disk drive = CD/DVD or optical drive.
HDD = hard drive.

Are both detected in the BIOS.
Is the optical drive set as the first boot device.

[WhydoIask?]

yeah, I'll use disk drive and HDD from now on. Both were detected in the BIOS. I've tried the default boot order, and putting the disk drive first, as well as trying both SATA 3 and SATA 2 ports, with 2 different cables. every time, the disk drive spins (I'm back on the blue-ray drive now) for about 30 seconds, then stops. no change.

[phillpower2]

Have you tried using ports 1+2 3+4 or 5+6.
Do you have a link to your disk drive specs.

[WhydoIask?]

I've tried ports 1-4.This is the disk drive I'm trying to use.

[phillpower2]

Try the slower 3Gb/SATA ports 5 and 6 please.
Check that the boot order has not reverted back to the HDD first.

[WhydoIask?]

I switched the cd drive to port 5, and I was suddenly able to access the ubuntu live CD I had on a flash drive (I tried putting USB ahead of the cd drive, but it stopped working when I tried switching it back the other way, it stopped working again.)

[phillpower2]

What type of OS disk do you have and can it be accessed on another computer.

Best couple of suggestions I can make would be first remove the MB and do a barebones set-up on a piece of cardboard (make sure it is larger than the MB) only connect the PSU, the GFX card, 1 stick of Ram and the keyboard.
IF your MB doesn`t have a power test switch you will then need to short out the 2 power on pins on the MB header to get the PSU to activate, you can use a small flat bladed screwdriver or a paper clip bent into a U shape, this is perfectly safe if you do not touch anything else, the idea is to see if we can get a BIOS screen if you do you can then add one component at a time until you find the problem component, you must power down and remove the power cord from the wall before adding a component, second suggestion try a known working PSU, it is not unknown for new components to be bad.
Other things worth checking include, if you used stand offs beneath the MB are they in the correct locations (only where there is a screw hole in the MB) otherwise the MB will short out, check for stray screws or bared wires for the same reason, make sure the jumper cap that can be used for clearing the CMOS is not missing or on the wrong pins.
If after checking all the above the issue is not resolved I would suspect a bad MB.

[WhydoIask?]

Ok, I feel bad about this now: I forgot to check the BIOS version. I had version 1.0, and everything immediately started working after I updated to v1.6.

[phillpower2]

Please do not feel bad after all you resolved the issue yourself and well done for that.
Thank you for sharing the solution so that it may help others in the future