Help! my first PC build cannot find the SATA HDD!

[magnumxavenger]

Hello fellow gamers,

I am not quite sure where to post this thread so I am sorry in advanced to the admins!

Anyway, I have assembled my first PC build, and I went straight to the BIOS to check which has boot priority; CD/DVD or the HDD. However when I reached the EZ BIOS screen, the HDD was no where to be found. I've spent 7 hrs figuring out what to do and I still have not found a solution to fix this.

I haven't installed an Operating System yet due to the fact that my PC could not find my HDD. I've already tried swapping cables to check whether they are working (I know that they are working because when I use them on the CD/DVD drive they work.), I have also tried using different HDD that are still in good condition and work on my other machines.

Here are the hardware that I have used: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1ULhp

[Gone_Troppo]

My guess would be that it can not see it because it has not been formatted yet and there are no drivers to tell it what it is supposed to be.

I know with my first full system build (Gigabyte board) I had to load the SATA / RAID drivers during OS (Win XP 32 bit) install from a 3.5" floppy disk.
Even though I was not setting up a RAID,
I had to press F6 somewhere along the way to load the SATA drivers.

I think it was the same when I upgraded that system to Win 7 on a new HDD though I'm pretty sure Win 7 has usb support for the SATA / RAID drivers to load from during OS install.
I remember having major issues getting it to install Win 7 also ... may have had something to do with the fact that I preformatted the HDD using Win XP or that the machine only had 2 Gb ram in it at the time ... but ... 3x BSOD's before the Win 7 OS even loaded but I got it there in the end after much persistence and doing things that one should not do ... I won't explain, it would take too long and wont help any.

I don't know about Win 8 if that's what your going to be installing.

Might help if you let everyone know what OS you are planning to use.

Check the motherboard manual, there should be a section on creating the RAID / SATA driver to load during OS install which is usually contained on the motherboard support disk, if not you may have to download it on another PC from the website.

Make sure you use the correct driver for your OS.

The only other thing I can remember is that it was set to AHCI in the bios not IDE or RAID.

Sorry I could not be of greater assistance.
It has been a long time since I have done a clean install on a black drive.

[magnumxavenger]

Yes I am installing Windows 8 on this machine.
Also I cannot boot the CD driver for the mobo for some reason. However I can boot the installer for Windows 8 but still cannot see any drives.

[Highlnder3]

magnumxavenger wrote:
Yes I am installing Windows 8 on this machine.
Also I cannot boot the CD driver for the mobo for some reason. However I can boot the installer for Windows 8 but still cannot see any drives.

Double check that you have the HDD plugged into the correct SATA port. If you plugged it into a third party controller's port you will have the problem you are describing.

[sectionate]

try booting with just 1 hd plugged in