IDE drive not being detected

I am hoping someone can give me a hand with a hardware issue.

My uncle brought me a PC to fix. The problem was that during the boot process, the BIOS would get as far checking the memory, then would say "Detecting IDE Drives" and just hang there.

I disconnected the hard drive (IDE) and it found the CD drive fine. I connected the cd drive to both of the ide channels, and then again using the other ide cable from the hard drive, and it was detected every time. I then went back and did the same process, only this time connecting the hard drive with the cd drive disconnected. POST stopped every time at the "Detecting IDE Drives"

From this, I assumed it must be an issue with his hard drive, and he purchased a new IDE drive. However, I get the same issue as before with the new drive, POST just hangs up at the "Detecting IDE Drives" part.

The mother board is a Foxconn 600A01-6LRS A (462) VIA KT600.

Bios is 04/21/2004-KT600-8237-6A6LYFKCC-00

I booted into knoppix and lspci tells me that the ide controller is a VIA VT82C586A/B/VT82C686A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)

Is there anything I can do to fix this? I am unsure if there is any way to flash the IDE controller as all I have access to on this system is trusty knoppix at the moment.

I appreciate any help you can provide.