# Unrecognized HDD...



## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

i booted up for the first time (my first build) and realized that it was only recognizing the disc drive i also decided to boot from the disc (to install windows) but it had nothing to install it to 
as the HDD wasn't recognized (waste of time i now realize). I have switched the sata cables from the disc drive to the HDD to see if it's sata not working but still it was only the disc drive being recognized. I'm not sure what raid is but my motherboard manual describes very briefly what raid is next to describing where the sata connectors are(so i'm guessing that raid is something to do with sata or HDD, so not to sure if this is a raid problem? so when i first boot i have two options. 1. 'continue' which i have established boots from the disc drive and 2. 'enter set up' which i have no idea what happens when/if i click that...

what should i do?



thanks in advance


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## Dacur (Jul 27, 2011)

Raid is 2 or more Hd's setup to different configs: 

Raid 0 (stripe) = 2 hd's looking like 1 big drive aka 2 80gb = 160gb, great for speed

Raid 1 (mirror) 2 hd's having their original size, but having the same data on both (cloned) aka 2 80gb  = 80 gb, great for backups

Jobd = Just a bunch of Disks = all Hd's put together aka 2 80gb +500gb+1tb = 1660gb as 1 Hd

If ur only using the disc drive + 1 hd then enter setup (Bios) and change raid to IDE and u should be able to see both.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Dacur said:


> Raid is 2 or more Hd's setup to different configs:
> 
> Raid 0 (stripe) = 2 hd's looking like 1 big drive aka 2 80gb = 160gb, great for speed
> 
> ...




and it doesn't matter that its a sata drive?


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## Dacur (Jul 27, 2011)

no both ide and sata drives can be setup as raid

What is ur motherboard? if u dont know how to change it in Bios from raid to ide. I can look it up and tell u what/where u have to change a setting.


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

You probably have the Jmicron RAID screen post making the time to get to the boot screen longer.
Instead of changing form RAID to IDE as suggested by Dacur switch it to AHCI which seems to be the standard nowadays if you have it on that board which you should.

Although if you were installing XP you would have to change it to IDE.


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## Mussels (Jul 27, 2011)

definitely use AHCI instead of IDE.


make sure your OS drive is not on the Jmicron ports, but on the regular intel ones - those extra SATA controllers require you to manually add their controllers drivers as if they were in RAID, and their performance always sucks.


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## MRCL (Jul 27, 2011)

"enter setup" is the gateway to your BIOS. There, in the boot device manager menu, you can set which harddrive is set to boot from. And in the hardware manager (you have to search around a bit its different from BIOS to BIOS), you can see which HDDs are active and which disabled, and in what order.

Entering BIOS you can do without fear as you can leave it and discard any changes you might have made.


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

Took a look at the ASUS site and I see it has an nVidia chipset so you will be looking for nVidia RAID most likely.

Other common ones I've come across are Jmicron and Silicon Image.

The chipset might explain the big heat sink and from what I remember when I was working one one, the big heat sink didn't take long to get very hot.


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## Mussels (Jul 27, 2011)

oh if its nvidia, that explains a lot. he may just need to manually install the AHCI/RAID drivers then.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

ok so i went to the advance screen in the bios and found something called NVRAID (which was disabled) then i enabled and then enabled sata port 4 (where my HDD is) it seems to have recognized something, i'll try to install windows now and see if it works... 


which did not work, got to the point where windows asked where do i want install windows and there was no HDD 

also in the bios menu there is something called primary IDE master and with in that there is: PIO mode UDMA mode primary IDE master and access mode which are all on auto and there is something called primary IDE slave which has the same things in it.

now it isn't even recognizing the disc drive and i cant enter the bios


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

Make sure NVRAID is disabled.
Make sure you have all SATA ports enabled.
I can not imagine Windows 7 needing the chipset drivers to be installed prior to get the HDD to be recognized but that maybe required.

When I installed windows 7 on to my old machine with nforce4 chipset it didn't complain about not finding a Hard drive.

Does the hard drive show up in BIOS along with the DVD drive?

The BIOS should show what peripherals installed.

EDIT:-
The machine is no longer posting again?
If so clear CMOS.
If you don't know where the jumper is pull the power cable, flick out the battery and press the power button for five seconds to get rid of any residue power.
Wait a few seconds then re insert the CMOS battery and power back on.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> Make sure NVRAID is disabled.
> Make sure you have all SATA ports enabled.
> I can not imagine Windows 7 needing the chipset drivers to be installed prior to get the HDD to be recognized but that maybe required.
> 
> ...



ok i'll get that battery out 

EDIT-

ok im back in the bios 

EDIT-
the only way that i can have all sata pots enabled is by having NVRAID enabled

where i look i just can't find the hdd.

hmm, i do have a external hdd laying around somewhere...

EDIT - 

when i do enable the NVRAID and enable all the sata ports and go back to the first boot up screen it does recognize something in sata 4 (where my hdd is) next to the sata 4 it has ST_M13FQBL 04081508 but then underneath that it says cmos checksum error - defualts loaded... but in the main menu of bios it is recognizing something in sata 4 with 4141mb

do you think i should whack the motherboard disc in?


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

SOUnds like you may have to manually install the sata drivers for this motherboard prior to installation :/

But none the less the HDD should show up in BIOS along with the DVD drive.

EDIT:-NVRAID Must be disabled.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> SOUnds like you may have to manually install the sata drivers for this motherboard prior to installation :/




and how do i do that


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

Hold on been doing some searching on your system.
It appears this motherboard has no AHCI support.

Do you have IDE enabled?
There should be a setting to treat SATA as IDE in your BIOS.
This maybe the problem.



guitarguy said:


> and how do i do that



The last time I have had to do this was in Vista which was a long time ago.
I have never encountered an installation issue where chip set drivers were needed for Windows 7.
If so you will need to download the windows 7 64bit drivers for your motherboard from the ASUS site and install them when the screen comes up where you should see the HDD.
At the bottom there is an icon which says load or something along those lines where you can install the chipset drivers.

EDIT:-You might have to install the SATA RAID drivers or the chipset drivers to get windows 7 to recognise the drives if the previously mention BIOS settings do not work.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> The last time I have had to do this was in Vista which was a long time ago.
> I have never encountered an installation issue where chip set drivers were needed for Windows 7.
> If so you will need to download the windows 7 64bit drivers for your motherboard from the ASUS site and install them when the screen comes up where you should see the HDD.
> At the bottom there is an icon which says load or something along those lines where you can install the chipset drivers.



to sum up, get all the drivers off the asus site, put on disc, load windows 7 then take that disc out put drivers disc in load those drivers

EDIT - 

when i do go into a sata port in the bios it always says 'extended IDE drive, not sure what that means...


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

guitarguy said:


> to sum up, get all the drivers off the asus site, put on disc, load windows 7 then take that disc out put drivers disc in load those drivers
> 
> EDIT -
> 
> when i do go into a sata port in the bios it always says 'extended IDE drive, not sure what that means...



Okay I've been doing some more google searching.
You're not the only one with this issue and has been resolved.
Apparently none of the mentioned is going to help.

The HDD needs to be formatted before windows recognizes it apparently.

As for extended IDE I honestly do not know.
I can only assume it that it means it is in IDE mode.


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> Okay I've been doing some more google searching.
> You're not the only one with this issue and has been resolved.
> Apparently none of the mentioned is going to help.
> 
> ...



so i should forget about drivers and formatt the drive, how on earth do i do that


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

If this is your only system to format the drive then from what I gather it's going to be a pain unless you are able to install say an old XP installation on it first so it will actually have a partition.



> Run DISKPART from a DOS command window, from within the Win 7 Install environment ( <shift-F10> )
> 
> run diskpart command from a prompt.
> 
> ...


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> If this is your only system to format the drive then from what I gather it's going to be a pain unless you are able to install say an old XP installation on it first so it will actually have a partition.




i'll give it ago

EDIT - 

i think i have an old 80gb hdd with linux installed on it...

EDIT - 

after the list disk command it is still only showing the disc in the disc drive and if i do carry on to the select partition 1 command it says 'virtual disk service error: the disk is not intialized'

EDIT - 

i connected up the old 80gb hdd and that was recognized  but it has linux mint installed, and for some reason has a username and password so i cant get to the desktop, am i totally screwed or what, haha.


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

I'm out of ideas.

Somehow you need to format the drive.
You may need to install the sata drivers.
There will be a load button during installation, then once they are installed windows maybe able to recognize the drive.

Here's a link of it being suggested.
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/11626-asus-p5n-d-w7.html


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## animal007uk (Jul 27, 2011)

Have you tryed putting the HDD on sata port 1 and how many drives are you using? HDD and dvd drive? or more.


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## Widjaja (Jul 27, 2011)

I guess you are running off a laptop at the moment?

The other option maybe to get a docking station to format your drive or download Ubuntu and install that on to the drive just so it is formatted and has a partition.= for Windows 7 to recognize.


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## de.das.dude (Jul 27, 2011)

is this a new HDD? arent you supposed to format it using dos or something from a CD?


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> I guess you are running off a laptop at the moment?
> 
> The other option maybe to get a docking station to format your drive or download Ubuntu and install that on to the drive just so it is formatted and has a partition.= for Windows 7 to recognize.



yes, could i not take the hdd from my laptop (which has vista running) and run that, then formatt the new hdd somehow?


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## guitarguy (Jul 27, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> is this a new HDD? arent you supposed to format it using dos or something from a CD?



i can only find window 98 and xp ones


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## de.das.dude (Jul 27, 2011)

any friends?


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## Law-II (Jul 27, 2011)

guitarguy said:


> i can only find window 98 and xp ones



Hi

You are installing windows 7 -Yes? (if yes do not format your SATA drive as windows 7 will do this for you using an NTFS format) 

you need to get the hard disk drive (HDD) recognised by your bios, make sure your HDD is on SATA 1 (not 4; move it to SATA 1 furthest away from the Primary IDE Port) if you do not move it your system will look at the IDE ribbon port on your mobo; as you have nothing attached to this your bios cannot see the SATA drive you are trying to install as a primary master hdd. 

edit: is your LG optical drive SATA? (needs to go on SATA 2 right next to the new position for the hdd sata cable)

(you can see the SATA 1/2/3/4 printed on the mobo next to the sata ports)

make sure that your power cables are pushed home fully as this is a common cause of a hdd not being recognised, you could also have a broken sata cable out of the box, again common place; change the sata cables if you have a spare one.

(the manual mentions that the bios should detect the presence of an SATA HDD automatically Pg 4-17)

edit: Note: Page 4-27; Onboard Device Config
-enter the IDE Function Setup (make sure everything is enabled)
-enter NVRAID Config (make sure everything is Disabled)

Edit: once your hdd has been recognised in SATA1 you need to navigate to the Boot tab in the bios screen; select "Boot Device Priority" and ensure CDROM (optical drive) is 1st & your HDD is 2nd, 
Next- 
- navigate to Exit and select Exit & Save Changes

-your system will reboot at this stage and end up with a message on screen saying primary hard disk not found or words to that effect and asking you to insert media (at this screen; pop the win 7 disk in the CDROM) then press the space bar on your keyboard 

Hope this helps 

atb 

Law-II


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## Widjaja (Jul 28, 2011)

I must have been pretty tired last night with some of the posts I was giving on this thread.

Ended up crashing out in the end. lol


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## Law-II (Jul 28, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> I must have been pretty tired last night with some of the posts I was giving on this thread.
> 
> Ended up crashing out in the end. lol



Hi

nice end to the day 

atb

Law-II


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