HDD not detected, yet is shown in BIOS..?

[timmoseus]

I have been pulling my hair out for a week now trying to wrap my head around this one. I have several computers (Dell Optiplex 390s, 790s, etc.) setup for mass imaging. I attach the blank HDD/SSD with both SATA power and data cables to said machine(s) and receive a BIOS alert that no HDD was detected. I go into BIOS and in the drives section there is the optical drive AND the HDD/SSD with detailed information about said drive(s). Thinking everything is OK, I reboot and get the same "no HDD detected" error, and yet it is being displayed in the BIOS!!! I have tried multiple drives, multiple machines, and multiple setups. My previous system was Dell Optiplex 380s, and I never had this problem. The BIOS is set for Legacy, not UEFI, and as it is a mass imaging setup, the HDD is removed from Boot Options. The goal is to load from a PXE network to Ghost multiple machines at once. Again, the Dell Optiplex 380s had no issues, once I tried to upgrade past something with a Core 2 Duo, everything breaks... Any ideas?

 

[thx1138v2]

" I attach the blank HDD/SSD..."

The drive needs a boot sector and/or file system installed for the BIOS to find a bootable partition. It is recognizing the hardware but there in no bootable data on the drive.

Boot from some other media to install an OS's file system and boot data.

 

[timmoseus]

It is an imaging setup. The whole point is that I am trying to ghost an image to a blank HDD. It will not, should not, and does not have a partition table until after the ghost process. The problem is not the lack of a partition table. The problem is that the system is alerting that there is no HDD to begin with, even though the BIOS lists very specific information about said non-existent HDD.

 

[Shaun o]

How many Sata ports does the board have ?

Check to see in the bios Tim if the Sata ports are split between two Sata chip sets.
One may be Intel, and the other a third party Sata controler Chip depending If the Sata ports are of mixed speed ratings Ie:

2.0 or 3.0 spec sata ports.

It`s the only time I have seen it where a bios detects a drive but does not report all of the details or information.
Or has a problem of detection Tim. Might be as simple as enabling in the bios a second Sata controler chip.

 

[timmoseus]

Not sure about the SATA controller. Presumably one controller. There are only two ports. They are small and ultra small form factors. Stock Optiplex builds from Dell. And the BIOS gives me the details, but every boot halts with a missing SATA drive alert. Even though SATA 0 and SATA 1 have details for both HDD and DVD... I tried switching them even with no success.

 

[timmoseus]

OK, so I think I found a work around. Even though BIOS is set to Legacy mode, UEFI still wants the HDD to be in the boot order. I enabled the HDD as a bootable device, despite the fact that I will never intentionally boot from the HDD on a dedicated imaging machine, and dropped it to the bottom of the priority list. Now when I look at the "boot options" for UEFI, again I am in Legacy not UEFI, the HDD appears in the list instead of "<unkown device>". I am not sure why UEFI needs to know that it can boot from an HDD that I am intentionally not trying to boot from, or why UEFI even cares when I have the machine in Legacy mode, but hey, it worked.

On the Optiplex 380s, this was not an issue. The biggest difference between the 380s and the 390s/790s is that the 380s are Core2Duo CPUs and the newer machines are "I-series". Maybe the I-series is dependent on UEFI boot order, despite being explicitly told in BIOS to use Legacy mode. Either way, it is working now. I also had to make some tweaks in my config.sys file to get Ghost 2.0 to play nicely with the newer equipment. Got to love being the lead tech for a not for profit computer refurb shop. Big thanks to our volunteer last night that suggested the fix. And thank you Shaun o for trying. Turns out it was a BIOS/UEFI issue, not SATA controller.