Help HDD isn't recognized

[hmims]

I just built a new pc but my HDD isn't being recognized when i'm trying to install windows 7 professional 64 bit. I have a 500gb WD HDD and a Gigabyte z68MA-D2H-B3 Motherboard, the HDD is plugged into the board with a SATA cable. Any idea on why its not being recognized?

Please help.

 

[extremepcs]

That is a relatively new board so Windows 7 might not have the SATA drivers for it. Obviously check all cables and such first (you connected the power cable to the drive, right?), but you could try setting the SATA mode to IDE or "Compatible" and see if it sees it then. If you want to use ACHI or RAID (ACHI is probably default in BIOS) then you will need to download the SATA drivers from Gigabyte from a working computer and place them on a thumb drive. During Windows setup, when it tries to detect the drive, there will be an option to add 3rd party drivers.

 

[hmims]

My hard drive is recognized in the Bios..... So i assume its a problem with windows 7..... any thoughts

 

[hmims]

This is what i did..... I took a laptop hdd and placed it into my desktop. I booted my desktop with the laptop hdd. I then placed the WD HDD ( the one that i've been having trouble with) as a second hard drive. I noticed that windows recognized the WD HDD and could write to it. I also reformatted the WD HDD. I then tried to run the windows installation from my laptop hdd so i could install it on my WD HDD and once again it didn't recognize it. I thought maybe i could clone my laptop HDD to my WD HDD and Acronis "clone software" couldn't recognize the WD HDD as well. This is frustrating...... Why can i write to the WD HDD but cant install the OS.