Problems with hard drive in custom PC, "no drives were found..."

[chrisdwu]

Hi,

I recently placed an order for parts to build a PC that would be used for gaming. I've never built a PC before, but when I received the parts, I had a friend help me. So far, everything seemed to be working fine.

That was, until I got to the part where I have to install the OS to a hard drive. This is past the part where everything goes wrong. I had put in the product key for activation, which was accepted. Then, I checked the license agreement stuff, that went all right. I chose a Custom installation, to install a Clean Copy - normal, I suppose, since this is a brand new, custom built computer.

At the part where I want to install Windows, all goes to *censored*. It claims, verbatim, "No drives were found. Click Load Driver to provide a mass storage driver for installation." I've tried a variety of driver software, to no avail. I've had friends from my dorm (which, incidentally, is full of engineering and compsci majors) come in to help, and all were defeated.

And given that normal tech support wasn't that helpful (likewise with Google), I decided to just ask the online community directly.

From what I can tell, my hard drive is definitely running, for it is giving off warmth during operation. It is a Western Digital Caviar Blue, W3200AAJS model. The storage capacity is 320 GB, and the interface is SATA 3.0 Gb/s. RPM, 7200. Cache, 8 MB. It is connected via two sets of cables: one that goes from the PSU (500W) and another that is a SATA connector.

My motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L type, and it definitely has SATA on it, because the HDD is connected to SATA port 0. There are six ports, labelled 0 to 5.

I'm not sure if SATA is disabled in BIOS, or if my hard drive is broken, or whatever. I can access the BIOS screen, but from there, I'm completely lost.

My main questions are as follows:

1. How can I tell if SATA is enabled in the mobo?

2. If it is enabled, what do I do to get the hard drive to be acknowledged in BIOS?

3. On the hard drive itself, there is the power connector, the SATA connector, and another socket that has 8 metal pins in it - not the super thin ones, but the slightly thicker, rounder ones. None of the parts I ordered came with any adapter to this. What is it, and is it important?

4. Assuming I get the BIOS to acknowledge the HDD, what happens if the same error message appears again while trying to install the OS onto the HDD?

As soon as I can get the OS to install, I should be good, but so far, I haven't been able to - this one little problem has bottlenecked what is otherwise a fairly good gaming PC. Honestly, I'm quite frustrated to have saved up and spent 700 dollars plus some to get the parts, only to have a useless hunk of metal and cables on my desk.

My system specs, if they help, are as follows:

Antec Sonata III case with fan and 500W PSU
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2.8 Ghz
EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+
4 gigs of RAM, 2x2GB Corsair 240-pin sticks
ASUS 22x DVD burner (the BIOS did list the ASUS the IDE Master/Slave channel list thing)
Western Digital Caviar Blue W3200AAJS 320GB SATA II hard drive (not reading in BIOS or by Vista)
Windows Vista Home Premium, 64-bit, OEM


Any help would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

[computeruler]

Make shure the drive is connected to right and into the right sata port. 

1. How can I tell if SATA is enabled in the mobo? It should be

2. If it is enabled, what do I do to get the hard drive to be acknowledged in BIOS? Make shure that it is connected right and if not then make shure its put to boot first in the BIOS

3. On the hard drive itself, there is the power connector, the SATA connector, and another socket that has 8 metal pins in it - not the super thin ones, but the slightly thicker, rounder ones. None of the parts I ordered came with any adapter to this. What is it, and is it important?
sounds like the jumpers  Dont mess with this

If the drive is connected right and its set to boot first in the BIOS, try to reconnect it.  If all else fails, your drive is bad

[GlitchPC]

First of all...make sure you install all the drivers for the mobo...including the SATA controller...

Once you have all of the drivers for the mobo installed...and all of your other hardware installed, then you can begin the OS installation.  However, make sure your SATA drive is recognized in BIOS, first.  You may need to adjust your settings in BIOS, so that the drive is recognized...normally, this can be accomplished by setting the BIOS to its defaults.  You may need to tweak a few settings in the BIOS for the SATA drive.

Then...during installation of the OS, you'll have to make sure you press the F6 key, since you're installing Windows on a SATA drive.

During the install process you may be required to have drivers available...these drivers come with your motherboard software...and there should be directions for creating media for these drivers, either from the mobo cd, or floppies.

I've included a link to your mobo's user manual.  Pay close attention to Chapter 5.  That chapter will definitely get you through BIOS recognizing the drive(s).  Here's the link:  http://america.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ep45-ud3l(r)_e.pdf

Keep us posted...