mobo cant find HDD

Ok I have been looking at Dell and Gateway systems when I finally just decided to build my own comp. I bought the MSI 865pe Neo2 P mobo, ATI radeon9800 vi card, PQI 512mb DDR, and an 80gig WD Caviar SE hdd. This is my first computer I have ever built and the first time I have tried installing a S-ATA hdd. my mobo cant or rather WONT find the hdd and in CMOS it says the only drives there are is my network and cd rom. any suggestions? msi just tells me to look at their stupid faq that doesnt help and wd says to jumper the 5th and 6th pins which didnt help.

 

wrong sata plug or maybe no power.

 

i tried either SATA ports and changed them accordingly in cmos no luck and i know its getting power because i hear it spin up

 

First I'd make sure the jumpers on the drive are set back to stock,make sure you only have one power supply plugged into it,or have you had 2 plugged in at any time during the past?,reset your cmos see if that helps then enable your sata controllers in bios.

 

Has it been formatted as it will not show until such times and have you installed the SATA driver, you should have a floppy that came with your new Mobo.

 

i dont know any thing about the formatting and no floppy came with my mobo. I do know that my mobo isnt OEM its retail so... also i cant install a driver until it finds the HDD right?????? im new to the computer thing btw

 

I don't have an answer for you. But something to question. I've never connected just one drive to a SATA RAID controller because I always set them up as a RAID. I've never seen an option to not set them up as a RAID. You need multiple drives to create a RAID. Can your controller accept just one drive to function properly? If you know the manufacture of the controller chipset, you might want to check their site for more detailed info. WD SATA drives have both types of power connectors. If you plugged both in at the same time, you may have fried the drive. It might spin up, but nobody is home. You don't say anything about swapping components. If you know someone with a SATA controller you can disconnect theirs and boot to the BIOS with yours. Or plug another drive into your MB. It might help determine if you have a hardware, or setup problem. Good luck.

 

awsome point. I did not plug up both power connectors btw. and how do u disconnect the sata controller? or am i confused about what u mean to unplug and swap with someone else??? I do not have much experience with the SATA config (obviously) but has anyone else gotten 1 SATA hdd to work on an MSI mobo?

 

After re-reading my note I see some confusion. I was thinking of plugging in your HD in a computer that has a known working setup. It would at least tell you if your HD is functioning. Or plugging in a different HD into yours. If you have a PCI type SATA controller available you could put it in one of your PCI slots and try your HD with that.
While I'm here. If you plan to use the SATA as a boot drive, It's not quite the same as an IDE. I imagine there are other threads throughout this forum that will explain in detail. Try searching on "booting to SATA" or "booting to SCSI".
I'm curious, why did you go SATA?

 

I let my friend throw it in his comp and his found it. and i dont have a PCI sata controller, its onthe chipset i think is what msi told me?? i dunno. I went with SATA cause it was an upgrade from 40gb pata to 80gb sata for 3$ more. and i was told that it was a good HDD....some luck I've had with that

 

Also i dont know if maybe i have to format the hdd and i dont know how to do that. and all the drivers are on a cd that came with the mobo. i put the cd in my other computer and couldn't find anything about SATA controller or anything. tho if i found it i wouldnt know what to do after that as far as getting my computer to read the floppy and updating the bios or w/e

 

It sounds like the HD is good. That leaves you with either a hardware or setup issue with the MB. I can't help you with that one. If the MB is under warrenty you might try that route. Something else came to mind. You could have a bad power connector, or data cable. There are 2 voltages at each power connector. One of the pins could be dead. Try a different connector, or check it with a meter. Try a different data cable.
As for formatting the HD, the MB doesn't care. It just looks to see what hardware is connected. Formatting is fairly easy. If you are going to load windows, it will prompt you and do it for you. There is all kinds of help here and at microsoft to get you through it.
Good Luck

 

its got 2 different power connectors i tried them both i tried switching cables also no luck. i just bought the board last week off newegg and i have already opted for an RMA I really didnt want to do that but oh well if i cant get it working by tomorrow, im shipping it out. thanks for the help guys