No hard disk detected help.

[ranger5150]

I just built my first pc and i finally got ready to install windows but a error message shows up and says no hard disk detected.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Im going to presume your using a SATA HDD?

Double check you have plugged it into the right SATA port on your motherboard.
Enter the BIOS and check SATA is enabled
Enter the BIOS and double check the Boot Order (check its not trying to boot from CD or USB if windows is already installed).

 

[ranger5150]

I have done all of those it shows the hard drive in the bios and the boot order is set to hdd first.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Do you have another computer you could test the HDD with? Or another SATA cable/SATA port to try with your current PC?

 

[Jeffreydidit]

Make sure your system BIOS is up to date. Some older BIO's dont initially come w/ SATA support, and the updates fix this. Just hit this problem yesterday with an ancient DELL 8400. Check w/ your MoBo manufacturer to see if you can download a SATA driver disk..

 

[Paperdoc]

This MAY relate to which OS you are trying to install.

Win XP in all its versions does NOT know how to use SATA (more properly, AHCI) devices without a driver. This was fixed in Vista and Win 7, so my comment here does NOT relate to those 2 more recent OS's. But IF you are installing XP or some earlier Windows OS, read on.

There are two ways to solve this dilemma. The easy way is to use a work-around that almost all BIOS designers have built into their BIOS code for exactly this problem. But using it does mean that you actually do NOT get to use a few of the new features of AHCI devices like hot swapping and NCQ. If that's OK with you, here is how to proceed. Put your Win XP Install disk in the Optical drive as you would for the normal Install procedure. Boot and go immediately into BIOS Setup to set three things. (A) Make sure the SATA ports are Enabled. (B) Near there, look for a line to set SATA Port Mode, with options like IDE (or PATA) Emulation, SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Set to IDE (or PATA) Emulation. This has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD appear to Windows to be a plain IDE drive type it fully understands, and the process works without any need for additional driver installation. (C) Go to where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Most people set it to Optical drive first, SATA unit second (specifically the one to which you plan to install the OS, if you have more than one SATA HDD), and no other boot devices allowed. Save and Exit, and the machine will reboot from the optical drive and start the Install. It should now be able to find that HDD because it is looking for an IDE device, and the BIOS is making your SATA HDD appear to be just that.

On the other hand, if you do wish to take advantage of all that SATA (AHCI) devices have to offer, you must install a driver for that device type as an early part of the XP Install process. To do this you need (at least temporarily) a floppy drive installed on your system because the Install routine only will load external drivers from that device. Plus, of course, you need to have prepared a floppy disk with the AHCI (or SATA) driver for your mobo on it, and you put this into that drive before starting the Install. You still need to ensure that the SATA port is Enabled and the Boot Sequence is optical followed by HDD. BUT for the SATA Port Mode, set it this time to AHCI (or SATA, if necessary). Now you boot into the XP Install process and watch very early for a prompt to press the F6 key to install extra drivers from floppy. Do that and follow the prompts. It will come back to the starting prompt to allow you to install more drivers in case you need to. When done, just tell it so. What this does is place that driver in a special place on the HDD so that the earliest part of Win XP can load it in and use it to access the ACHI device for all further work. It's as if the AHCI driver has become part of the small group of "built-in" drivers for this installation of Win XP - it has been customized. When you have told it you are finished adding that driver(s), Win XP Install will be able to find and use the AHCI device (SATA HDD) for the Install Process, and it will always work thereafter. This slightly more complicated process is the "right" way to do it, and it uses a tool that has been part of Windows Install for some time. In earlier (and current) cases it is also used to add drivers for SCSI or RAID systems so Windows can install to them and boot from such a drive system.

 

[ranger5150]

Here ill just list the components i got a aus p67 sabertooth motherboard with a i7 2600k and a gigabyte geforce gtx 560ti. I have 16gb of corsair vengeance and a seagate 7200rpm drive. I currently have windows 7 professional installed.
Windows loads but the message keeps popping up

 

[AdrianPerry]

Do you mean when your PC boots, on the black screen at the start when it says No SATA device detected? Or something like that.

If so it doesnt matter, if the HDD is working and your OS is on there and you can save to ect ect its working fine. My PC does exactly the same thing, well it did untill i disabled some of the sata controllers in the bios.

 

[Paperdoc]

From your first post I assumed you have not yet been able to Install any OS. Now you say you have Win 7 Pro installed and running OK. But you keep getting a message about not detecting a hard drive. Then what? does Win 7 load and run, anyway?

I suspect AdrianPerry has the right track here. It appears that your BIOS Setup has a reference to a non-existent drive of some kind. Now, usually, if there is no device attached to a port, that does not cause such messages. BUT it WILL cause a problem if you are trying to USE a device that is not there. So, check what ports are enabled on your machine. Are the IDE port(s) Enabled with NO IDE device present? What about the floppy drive port - is it Enabled with no drive? Does your mobo have a second SATA controller chip with no drives attached? Also check the Boot Priority Sequence - is should ONLY have devices listed that actually exist and are Enabled.