W2K3 installation does not detect hard drive

Yes. The LED is not required for the card to function. The LED being connected is useful to the extent it will blink when the drive(s) on the card are active, but that's it.

 

I ran into something else now. I haven't tried it on a new HD but I installed XP Pro and wiped out W2K3 on the HD I have. The system still reboots itself but now I dont see any errors or warnings in the event log before it reboots. Not even one. It just reboots itself. The events 5 and 11 that I used to see before were due to the CD-ROM port on the mobo. Now, I connected both the HD and the CD-ROM thgough the IDE adapter and I dont see these events at all. I see one information event that "The rocketport/rocketmodem driver has successfully installed" every time I logon to the system. I am beginning to wonder if this is causing the reboot as most of the newly installed drivers require one. What do you guys think?

I also see only one error event 7026 after it reboots. "the following boot-start or system-start drivers failed to load: i8042prt". I understand that this is related to PS2 keyboard and mouse. I am connected through USB keyboard and mouse. I am not sure if this is related to the problem I am facing.

 

Here's the motherboard info

NEC G7FYD
chipset : via vt82c694x apollo pro 133a

 

i can't find anything about your mobo, can you post a pic of it ?