misc problems with new(and now old) hd

[Lockup]

I recently purchased a 120gb western digital hd, and wanted to move my mp3s/videos/etc to it and keep my 60gb (western digital too) for my OSs (linux and windows).

At first i wasnt able to get it detected unless it was alone so i backed my data to a windows share on my lan and then copied stuff on the 120gb partition from knoppix and then proceeded to reinstall linux/windows on the 60gb

i started with the 2k install since it generally likes messing up grub anyways, which went fine until it had to reboot(it just didnt want to boot off my 60gb hd, which was as a single master at that time since the 120 was unplugged...)
turns out WD's partition tool messed the partition table up, so i fixed that with fdisk in knoppix, which made it work(gasp)

after looking around on my motherboard's website for a bios patch for the 120gb i found it, flashed, so now i have the 60 as master and 120 as slave, and guess what: cant boot off the first hd(havent tried the second, im not gonna put any operating system on it anyway)

it just wont boot off it at all(i tried to force it with Smartboot bootdisk which gave the same result, which is just a flashing "_' like youd have in a shell prompt)

i went ahead and installed gentoo quickly on it, grub on the mbr, and i ended up where i started: unable to boot windows or linux -_-

any ideas what might be wrong? i can read /dev/hda1 (ntfs) and /dev/hdb1(fat32) fine with knoppix, so i dont think that it could be data corruption or anything...
thanks in advance



here are my specs:
P3 450mhz on a FIC vb-601 motherboard (now with the mi4118 bios so that it detects the 120gb properly)
Western digital caviar 120gb 7200rpm
WD 60gb 7200rpm
if you need any more info just ask ill be around all day probably

[Lockup]

i just tested a few more things...tried to boot the windows repair cd for a laugh and i tried "fixmbr" which is supposed to...fix the mbr i guess
and it said it had problems writing to it, so im beginning to think that it might be a bad sector on the mbr or something....hrm