BIOS and Windows won't recognize hard drive! :(

[cbaze19]

Alright... Well I just built my first computer. Everything has gone smoothly until now. I booted up the computer, and set the CMOS date and time etc... and then popped in the windows 7 installation disc. It did its thing until the part where it asked where I wanted to install windows. There were no drives recognized to choose from. I went into BIOS setup and it recognizes my DVD rom drive but not my hard drive... Not sure what to do.

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard
WD Caviar Black 640G HDD

2X4 GB of G. Skill RAM
Intel Duo Core processor

I'm not sure what is going on here. Are there some BIOS settings that I needed to tend to before installing windows perhaps? When I turn on the computer I can feel the drive spinning for a while but then it stops after a minute or so. Not sure what I need to do exactly... But then again I'm extremely new to all of this! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[cbaze19]

oh and also... i tried an old hdd from another computer that had sata ports and plugged it in and the bios recognizes it. Maybe it's a bad HDD?

 

[Harvey]

Two questions;

1. Does your motherboard require you to enable SATA in the CMOS?

2. Has the drive worked, before?

If you're beyond those, you could have a bad cable or a bad connector on the motherboard. If you eliminate the cable and the connector, try temporarily connecting the drive as a slave on another machine to see if it is recognized.

Good luck.

 

[corkyg]

Is the drive formatted and has an active partition?

 

[Harvey]

Is the drive formatted and has an active partition?

That wouldn't affect whether the drive would be recognized in the CMOS.

 

[cbaze19]

@Harvey: I'm pretty sure that it isn't the connections or the cables due to the fact I tried another HDD from another comp via sata connections and it recognized it right off the bat and started up windows xp. This is a new drive that I just received from newegg a few days ago. So I don't think it's either of those two problems because the second drive I tried was recognized through sata ports. I tried hooking this new HDD up to the SATA bracket of my sister comp and it did not recognize it either... So I'm not sure...

@corkyg: I'm not sure. I have not gone through any steps to format the drive or create a new partition for it. I assumed that is what the installation of windows on the drive would do for me, but maybe I'm mistaken. If there are some things I need to do to format the HDD so the BIOS will recognize it... Then I'm up for that! haha. THanks for the help

Oh and also... When I go into the BIOS... It totally recognizes my DVD-ROM drive on master ch 1 or somethin like that... and then it shows master ch 3 but has nothing after it... Ex:

Master CH 1: DVD-ROM
Master CH 3:

Like it recognizes that somethin is hooked up there... but doesn't know exactly what it is... :\ duno haha

There is an option in the windows installation to upload some drivers so that windows will recognize it? Not sure what I would need to download for it though...

 

[bruceb]

Looks like you answered your own question.
The New drive, did not work in another computer.
So, it must be defective.

 

[Harvey]

Looks like you answered your own question.
The New drive, did not work in another computer.
So, it must be defective.

Also, AT staff reviewed this board with a Caviar Black drive with great results. Another vote for a bad drive.

 

[cbaze19]

Alrighty. Well thanks again for the help! Time to call and get a replacement on the way...

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I dont think this applies to SATA, but i remember WD IDE drives made you remove the shunt entirely if they were to be master without slave. Wonder if there is something similar here?

 

[cbaze19]

Yep. The drive was defective. Went up to best buy and bought the same drive and came back and it recognized it right away without any issues. Sending the old one in for a refund. Thanks again everyone. Appreciate the help

 

[gravator]

thanks