BIOS does not recognize my HDD :(

[riiptide]

Hey guys I have recently built a fresh computer and everything works fine except my HDD. I know that I have the SATA cable plugged into the correct places (i check it every time it does not work). The thing that is weird though is that the BIOS recognizes the optical drive and it works just fine (that is on a SATA cable too). Another thing is the HDD does start up i mean it makes the on noises but the BIOS still does not recognize it. Could this be a Mobo problem or an HDD problem... I dont know : ( any help would be appreciated. and i cant run any programs to see if the HDD is bad because i cant install windows to the HDD because the BIOS wont recognize it. Obviously I am a complete noob at this stuff so dont judge me too hard : )
Here are my specs, although I really have no idea what to put so ill just copy the stuff of my newegg receipt haha : )

Mobo- ASRock z68 extreme3 gen3 1155R
graphics card- EVGA 012-p3-1573-KR GTX 570 hd
PSU- corsair 800w GS800 CMPSU-800G R
CPU- Intel core i5 2500k 3.3g 6M R
RAM- 4Gx2 Gskill F3 12800CL9D 8GBRL
HDD- 500G Samsung HD502HJ ST500M005
optical drive- DVD BRN ASUS DRW-24B1ST
OS- windows 7 home premium or it will be if i ever figure out what is wrong with mah HDD

 

[inzone]

It could be a setting in the bios , have you made any changes in the bios when putting the Pc together. You want to make sure that the sata controller in the bios is set to IDE or even AHCI but not raid.
Have you checked the drive boot sequence in the bios and made sure that the Samsung is listed as the first boot option?

 

[riiptide]

The SATA controller is set to IDE and I also checked the boot sequence and the Samsung hard drive is not even on the list. i really hope this is a hard drive problem and not a mobo problem lolz.

 

[inzone]

There are sometimes two places for the drives to be listed and Asrock is a lot like Asus in thier bios. There is ond place where the drives are listed that are connected to the motherboard and then there is the boot sequence I found this out the hard way in the same kind of situation you are going through right now where the drive was not showing up and when I found this drive list and made sure that the OS drive was listed first then it appeared in the boot sequence and I was able to list it first there also. If it's not listed first in the other drives list then the bios doesn't include it in the boot sequence. The thing is that the bios will use one hdd , one dvd drive and one usb drive in the boot sequence so that's why it's important for the Samsung to be listed first in the drives list.

 

[Murissokah]

From what I gathered, adding to what mr. inzone said, there are two sata controllers on that board:

Marvel SE9120 controller: The two sata ports on the top (when looking straight at the motherboard with your CPU on the top) are connected to this controller. These ports are white, and are called SATA3_M1 and SATA3_M2

Intel sata controller: All the other ports. Two of them are also white (directly under the marvel ports), the rest is blue. The white ones are SATA3_0 and SATA3_1. The blue ones are SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4 and SATA2_5.

If you are connecting anything on the top SATA ports (SATA3_M1 or SATA3_M2), the controller has to be enabled on the BIOS. That would explain your hard drive not showing up.

Also, your e-SATA port is multiplexed with the SATA3-M2. That means if you connect anything to your external e-SATA port, the SATA3_M2 (top right) will be disabled.

Please tell which sata ports you are using, and what is connected to them.

 

[rolli59]

Make sure your controller (sata 6gb) is enabled in BIOS if they are on separate controllers (not all native).

 

[riiptide]

kk lemme mention a few more things... first off i can run windows off the installation disc i mean like it comes up on the monitor but it cant find a storage device to install to (this is where my HDD should be popping up and its not). Second is that I have my DRW plugged into SATA slot 2_5 and my HDD to SATA slot 3_0. I have plugged my HDD into every SATA slot and none of them recognize it, I have plugged my DRW into every SATA slot and all of them recognize it. i have also switched the SATA cables I was using between the two and still got the same results. also i have just noticed that when I have my HDD plugged in there are 2 boot options;
SATA: ASUS DRW 24B1ST c
UEFI: ASUS DRW 24B1ST c
I dont know if that means anything or not but i thought i would mention it.
also i just learned this but my friend was originally building this for me and he just texted me and said that the BIOS did recognize the HDD but then he did something and now it wont show up ( i know that sounds suspicious but dont judge me : P ) and he gave up... soooooooo now that i know that im kinda mad at him...

 

[riiptide]

k my friend told me what he did. he deleted the 465GB partition of my HDD when he was trying to make a partition for windows 7... is there any way to get that back and would deleting that 465GB partition prevent the HDD from showing up in the bios? im gonna kill my friend i should have built this myself >.<

 

[rolli59]

If you have tried every SATA plug, the drive got power and still does not show up in BIOS then the drive is dead! Deleting a partition should not kill a drive nor hinder it showing up in BIOS!

 

[szaboaz]

You are trying to decide if it's the motherboard's fault (even if it's just a BIOS switch) or the hard drive's fault.
So why doesn't your friend swap the parts with his own computer.
Let's try to put this hard drive to his mobo, or his hard drive to your mobo. No?

 

[inzone]

A hard drive will show up in the bios if it had a partition or if it did not and it is starting to sound like your friend may have changed something in the bios. What you should do is take your motherboard owners manual and go over all of the settings one by one to see if somethimg has been changed or better yet you should make your friend do it. Before giving up on your drive though you should try it in another computer to see if it is recognized and that will tell you that there is a setting in your boards bios that has been changed.

 

[riiptide]

kk guys we figured it out it is a faulty HDD and we are RMAing right now. we plugged it into my friends computer and it still wasnt recognized. then we plugged his HDD to my computer and it worked fine. Thank you for all your responses. Tom's Hardware is definitley the best tech support forums and im glad I joined and thanks again and you guys have a great day : )

 

[pedromartinez]

I don't know if this of any help to anyone. But I got a problem with my RAID 0. I had to remove RAID from both drives. I decided to scrap RAID 0 and use two separate drives. The one drive that was causing the RAID to fail, I deleted the partitions which were 4 as I had did to the healthy drive which had 2 partitions on it. After I removed those partitions, I didn't create a new one and I rebooted my system. Since my system has not recognized this drive. I have checked SATA cables. I have plugged cable into good drive, and to no avail. My BIOS will not even detect that the hard drive is connected.

I have a feeling that the partition thing had something to do with it.