It really is a crap shoot if the thing is bootable. Going through my SD card drawer, I found a 32gig class 10 card I was using with my Raspberry Pi before I got a B+. I'll wait to post any more. Got a 12hr a day week comming...not gonna wana tear anything apart.
u dont have to do that.. its optional.. the 50GB IDE drive u got should work aswell..
i can almost guarantee your problems are related to bad rameither u have incompatible ram, or an incompatible combination of ram with different timings, or u have an incompatible combination of ram manufacturers/chip configuration or u have 1 bad/corrupt piece that has just gone bad with the passing of time somehow (it happens)
are u using more then one ram chip int he computer?
are u using 2 different unmatched ram chips together?
if u have more then 1 ram chip installed.. take all of them out.. make sure the contacts dont have any crap on them and reinstall only 1 ram chip.. to rule out the possibility of an incompatibility... and try to boot up then
think about it.. whats more likely.. the ram is bad. or the IDE Controller + logic board (which havent been touched.. ) has just magically gone bad.. everything the computer does goes thru the ram.. it cant boot without the ram... Duhhh the error indicated a memory error
clearly u have a memory problem to the point where the machine cannot reliably startup
as is the case WITH EVERY TYPE OF COMPUTER WITH A MEMORY PROBLEM be it PC or MAC or what have you
u could have a bad slot aswell where someone has physically bent a pin on the memory slot itself so you should experiment with differnt ram peices in different slots.. leaving one or the other slot vacant.. and u will find the problem!