Vista not recognizing sata hard drives

[dapa]

I am a novice, but thought I would try building a PC anyway. I have it up and able to open bios. When I try to install Vista 64 stops because it can not recognize either of the sata hard drives that are installed. They are OEM WD1001FALS 1TB. I'm not sure how to get a drive recognized so it will install. Help!
dapa

 

[sub mesa]

First, what kind of drive is it, a SATA driver? I'm assuming so, because of the large capacity. With SATA you can select in the BIOS what kind of "mode" you want: Normal or IDE, AHCI and RAID.

If you select IDE or AHCI Vista should find your disk. But if you selected RAID mode this will not work. Also pay attention if your motherboard has different colour SATA ports, as their behavior may vary. Your disks are connected directly to the motherboard right? What kind of motherboard do you have? No part numbers please, just the name

 

[sub mesa]

And, are you sure the drives have power and are running? You hear them spinning up when you power on the pc?

Found this picture of your drive, so it needs 2 cables. 1 to the motherboard, the other from the power supply.

 

[dapa]

First, what kind of drive is it, a SATA driver? I'm assuming so, because of the large capacity. With SATA you can select in the BIOS what kind of "mode" you want: Normal or IDE, AHCI and RAID.

If you select IDE or AHCI Vista should find your disk. But if you selected RAID mode this will not work. Also pay attention if your motherboard has different colour SATA ports, as their behavior may vary. Your disks are connected directly to the motherboard right? What kind of motherboard do you have? No part numbers please, just the name

Yes they are SATA drives. It is a Gigabyte motherboard. Power cables are installed as well as the data cables to the motherboards main 6 sata socket area. There are two different colored SATA sockets that run "Gigabyte's" own programs for the SATAs, they have nothing conected to them.

When I get home I'll make sure the hard drives are powering up and try your suggestions.
thanks dapa

 

[dapa]

I finally got the system up and running last night. What fooled me was the fact that I could tell the hard drive was powered and spinning up. Also it was correctely being identified in bios. When I first tried the system I had 2 identicall hard drives installed. To simplify I disconnected one of the drives (the good one naturally.) The defective drive seemed to be spinning up as it should. After going through bios options for the hundreth time I tried disconnecting the first drive and reconnected the second drive. First try and vista loaded without a hitch. With my system running I went back and tried to format the bad drive. It would cycle through like it was formating but would stick at the end cycling for about an extra 15 minutes before self interupting and not completing the format. I tried it several times with the same results. So no exactly Dead On Arrivial but certainly DEFECTIVE ON ARRIVIAL. Got the RMA # and returned this evening.
Thanks for all the suggestions and help
dapa