bty

all the cables are secure
i've checked that numerous times
i've taken everythiing in and out a good dozen or so times now

check which jumpers ?

and my hd is listed in the bios..

and yeah i kinda figured the bios chip in the asus was fried
but since that board was discontinued i wasn't sure i could order a new chip
so i went with buying the 2nd board..

another button battery ?
by that i'm guessing you mean the bios battery?

yeah.. i've got 3 of them here..
the one that came in the asus, one i replaced the one in the asus with a few months ago, and the one that came with the new mobo..

i've tried switching all 3 of them back and forth in there
none of them are letting me save anything
and those batteries aren't supposed to go dead for years, from what i hear..
unless i just got VERY unlucky..

ok I just noticed another new error too..

"Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed"

says that right above the cmos checksum error