Hard Drives are not showing in BIOS and Windows will not install...help please!

[AdrianIscariot]

Hi everyone,

Another plea for help from me I'm afraid!

I received my replacement mobo yesterday, and I'm delighted to say this one lets me get into the BIOS! I was very relieved and happy.

After testing the components were okay I went ahead and installed the rest of my bits into the case. Still booted okay, so next I tried to load an OS, but this is where things went a bit pear-shaped.

Windows can't load as it can't seem to find the driver needed to use one of my hard drives. It asks me to provide the driver, but I've no idea what it needs - is it a mobo driver, or for the SSD, or HDD? Or something else? It also does not show any hard drive to install onto.

When I checked in the BIOS, in SATA devices, again nothing was there - it just says empty next to all 6 slots.

I have a Corsair Carbide Air 540 case, which has 2 hot-swappable trays in the bottom. I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB connected to the left one and a Samsung 840 EVO connected to the left one. They are powered by a SATA power cable from the PSU (although I think both drives are on the same cable (it has 3 SATA power connectors - could that be the problem?) and plug into the first row of the bottom two SATA connectors on the mobo. My optical drive (which DOES show in the BIOS) is plugged in behind one of the drives.

I also have AE on the Q-Code display.

I'm so confused as I don't know if I can solve this issue with some kind of driver that Windows is asking for, or if actually I need to get the hard drives to show in the BIOS before I can even attempt to load the OS.

I'd be ever so grateful if someone can help me with this. I really hope it's not another case of faulty hardware and it's just me being dense. Any tips/advice very gratefully received!

In case it helps, here is what I'm running:

Intel 4670K
Corsair H100i
8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X (2133MHz, C11, 1.5v)
EVGA 780 Classified
Cooler Master V1000 PSU
Pioneer Blu-Ray/DVD
Seagate Barracuda (2TB)
Samsung 840 EVO SSD (250GB)

Thanks, everyone.

Adrian

[HiVizMan]

Have only the SSD installed when you wish to install OS

Make a USB OS install stick, use the Microsoft USB tool to do so.

[AdrianIscariot]

Thanks, I'll remove the HDD. I can't install via USB as I don't have a stick large enough unfortunately, so will have to use the DVD.

The main problem seems to be getting the BIOS to show I have a drive connected. At the moment they all say 'Empty'.

I've moved the connectors so that they are now in the top two, and also enabled 'Hot Swap' in the BIOS as the trays insert directly into connectors built into the case. No luck, though.

Next I'll try plugging the SSD in directly (not using the trays etc). If that doesn't work I'll flash the BIOS. I'm kinda scared though, I feel like doing something like that may wind up with me back in the old situation where I can't even boot into the BIOS!

Is there anything else I should try?

[Nodens]

Plug the drive directly. That's 99.9% your problem. You'd be surprised at how many cases have faulty or incompatible hotswap bays...

[HiVizMan]

Hotswap bay? I missed that darn.

[Nodens]

No worries mate, it happens:)

I ripped both bay PCBs out of my HAF-X case the first day I got it as I immediately saw them causing SATA disconnects on my controller.

Gotta love case hotswap bays:

4667: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 2a 00 00 33 94 70 00 00 08 00
4668: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 28 00 00 34 00 a8 00 00 08 00
4669: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 28 00 00 31 71 60 00 00 20 00
4670: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 28 00 00 b6 3e 80 00 00 18 00
4671: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 2a 00 00 31 6f 80 00 00 80 00
4672: 12-03-12,19:53:31 WARNING:Command timeout on PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Path 4433221102000000, CDB: 2a 00 00 84 9e 00 00 00 68 00

[AdrianIscariot]

You guys were bang on. I plugged the SSD into the cage at the back and it worked perfectly. Can't connect the HDD now, but frankly I don't give a monkey's as the system is working! It's alive!!

Thanks for all the help here, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing what I can do with this system, so far I've thrown a couple of benches at it, but hopefully tomorrow I'll get some more time to see what it can do!

[Nodens]

No problem! Enjoy your system! And if you really need hotswap look at the pro/IT market stuff. The stuff on the cases are cheap and utter crap.

Now as far as connecting your HDD, I'm not familiar with your particular case but with most cases you should be able to unscrew the small hotswap PCB and pass cables in the tray to connect the drive directly. That's what I do with my HAF-X.

[AdrianIscariot]

Right again! There were two small screws that hold the plate with the connectors on. Once that was loose I could pull the SATA power and data cables out through it. The only challenge left is to somehow get one of my SATA power leads to connect to it. The problem is I only have three cables, and have four SATA devices. However each cable has three connectors, so I can do it if two devices share a wire, but as they're in different places that might be tricky. And since it's working now I feel a little reluctant to swap things around now!

Loving the system so far, though. I've not had time to try much with it, but I've had a go at a couple of benchmarks and really enjoyed it. I've used the bios to 'Level Up' to 4.2GHz, which seems stable. Tried the 4.4 option but got two blue 😞 screens in quite quick succession. I need to read up on OC-related stuff now and try again.

[Nodens]

Just buy a SATA power extension cable.