Was helping a friend with the above computer. It was updated to Windows 10 OK but was really slow so I replaced with a UMPC Core i5 8GB and 128GB SSD. That goes well.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01485455

As a favour he gave me the old machine as I said I might be able to get to a usable state by replacing the internal HD with a SSD.

But upon getting it home it took ages to boot and then said no HD found. I removed the 3.5" 320GB drive and tried to access it from a USB cradle but it does not show up so I presume it must have died.

So instead I replaced that drive with as 128GB SSD and tried to boot from a DVD - trying Windows  7, 8.1 and 10. It takes ages to get past the BIOS screen and then displays Initializing USB Controller for ever basically. It never tries to boot from the DVD or for that matter a USB drive I have inserted.

It does recognise the HD and the DVD drive during POST.

I did run diagnostics and the system check is fine. 

I have been occasionally been able to get to the BIOS and tried changing SATA to IDE from ACPI mode but that didn't help. Also tried default settings etc.

Not entirely sure what is wrong but before I take it to the tip (which is a shame since the touch screen is really nice and large and was supported by Windows 10), does  anybody have any ideas on what might be the matter. It seems a shame to waste but if it won't boot from a DVD or USB then it's basically useless.