# BIOS not detecting SATA hard drives



## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

Hi,

I just replaced my old motherboard for a new one and i dont have any problems with it except that it will not detect my hard drives for some reason.  I did what the manual said to make sure the SATA features were enabled and what not.  I have switched out cables and 2 different power supplies (both brand new) and still nothing.  The hard drive has windows vista ultimate x86 installed on it if that helps at all.  There were no problems with the hard drives because i was using them earlier today on my other mobo.  

Motherboard: GA-MA770T-UD3P

If anyone can help me I thank you in advance.


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## animal007uk (Sep 19, 2009)

Hi, im guessing your bios is simler to mine as i have a gigabyte mobo to.

In the integrated peripherals you should have a few options
SATA RAID/AHCI mode 
or
SATA AHCI mode

if you have SATA AHCI enabled then the hardrives won't show up on the main post screen (well not on mine anway) you will also need to install drivers to get this mode working and you might even have to tweak the registry as vista is already installed.

Do you have another hardrive you can test?
might also be worth trying an old ide drive to to make sure the ide slot is working.

will post more if i think of anything else.

Is your hardrive an older style SATA drive? it might have that small jumper on it to choose what the drive runs at such as SATA150mbs or SATA300mbs, if it has that jumper you might need to move it or even take it of the drive.


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## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

no I have the newer version one i think, its 3.0gbps or whatever so i have no jumper settings.  I tried both of my SATA drives they are both the same type and neither work.  And my problem is that my computer wont even boot into windows though, it keeps telling me disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter.  Does that mean I need to make a boot disk like using a USB or something?  I tried putting in the vista cd but it just went to the install screen and i couldnt do anything from there.

So i guess my question is now, how can i install the drivers if i cannot get into windows?


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 19, 2009)

What was the previous board SiGn?

Check device listings to see if the bios mentions them there. If they are their your having boot priority issues and not an issue as I see with the hard drives themselves. Did you have them setup in a RAID array?


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## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

my old board was an old nForce41 board.  with that one it read the drives right when i installed them, i didnt have to mess with settings like i do this one.  I don't think i had them set up in RAID array unless it did it automatically.  With the other board i basically just plugged in the cables and it could read it right away.  Ill have to re install my other board to check the settings if i really have to I guess. 

here is my old one: EVGA 133-K8-NF41 939 NVIDIA nForce4


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 19, 2009)

SiGn said:


> my old board was an old nForce41 board.  with that one it read the drives right when i installed them, i didnt have to mess with settings like i do this one.  I don't think i had them set up in RAID array unless it did it automatically.  With the other board i basically just plugged in the cables and it could read it right away.  Ill have to re install my other board to check the settings if i really have to I guess.
> 
> here is my old one: EVGA 133-K8-NF41 939 NVIDIA nForce4



Just mentioning that once you do get them working properly you may want to reinstall your OS.


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## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

anyone else have any ideas? there was no raid arrary on other mobo or anything.  all im trying to do is get it to detect my main hard drive right now.  I tried to windows vista installation and it doesnt detect the drive either, and i even tried the other drive as well and i get the same problem.

edit: also the IDE port does work, my dvd drive uses it also i have a small IDE drive i tested and it detects it.


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## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

anybody at all....


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## oily_17 (Sep 19, 2009)

Can you set the SATA type to native IDE and see if it detects the hard drive.


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## SiGn (Sep 19, 2009)

oily_17 said:


> Can you set the SATA type to native IDE and see if it detects the hard drive.



I have tried all the settings it has for the SATA options.


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