Hard drives not showing up in bios

alright, i was having issues getting windows to install, when that wasn't working i switched the ide cables around (the ones from my DVDRW drives to my Hard drives and the one from those to my dvdrw drives.) now bios doesn't detect my hard drives at all. only my dvd-rw's. i switched everything back the way it was and it is still only recognizing my dvd-rw drives. sometimes it shows up with incompatableata or something like that like it does see them. just doesn't want to use them...im really wanting to get this computer up and going...any help GREATLY appreciated.

 

I would change the IDE or Sata cable and see if that helps.

If you do that and it still isn't in the bios then the drive could possibly be bad or isn't' getting power. Do you hear the drive spin up when you turn the pc on?

Was the HD ever found when you where installing or no?

 

yes it spins and sounds fine. it doesnt let me get to the beginning of the installation. it goes to the blue screen where its loading everything for the install but stops at the end and goes to a blue screen of death or doesnt let me start at all and gives me a error. ive switched the cable multiple times. its reading a 40gb i just put in. but not correctly. its giving me a ATAPI Incompatable error...any way to fix that? same error it gave me on the other hard drives too.

 

What is the motherboard in the computer?

 

its a elitegroup p4s5a2 rev 1.0 motherboard.