BIOS will not detect my hard drive. Please help!

erebusnyx9

Distinguished
Oct 27, 2011
2
0
18,510
Hi. This is the first time i've posted for help. I just built a computer and the bios will not detect my hard drive. I have a Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H motherboard, AMD Phenom II x4 955 black edition processor, WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500gb hard drive, Gforce GTX 550 ti graphics card, G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB memory, Cooler Master HAF 912 Mid Tower ATX Case. I've tried to install Windows 7 and Windows XP but neither detect the drive and it doesn't show up in BIOS. Can anyone help?
 
Disconnect the HDD, remove the battery from your motherboard and clear the cmos.
Re-insert the battery, connect the HDD, change the SATA mode to IDE of the port your HDD is connected to. Save your BIOS settings and reboot into BIOS.

See if that allows your BIOS to detect the drive.
 

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
For the port your SATA drive is attached to, the Port Mode should be IDE Emulation IF you are installing Win XP. However, if you are installing Win 7, set that SATA Port Mode to AHCI.

Check which SATA port you are using. Some boards have their first four SATA ports always usable, plus a couple more that need a driver installed before they become available. For your boot drive, it is best to connect it to SATA Port 0 or 1. If that does not work, try another low-number port. Check also that the power connection to the HDD is solidly in there.