New Build Asus A8V MoBo wont recognize SATA HDD

First build and I am 99.96% sure it is all properly connected. At one point I could see that it recognized the HDD as I saw Samsung etc. It was also at one point visible in the boot order. BUT no matter what I do, when I try to install windows it constantly says that it can not see a hard drive and refuses to boot. When I do the F6 thing (if you know what I mean) I can see the drive, but cant get the menu to work the only key that works is escape. I read another post that said I needed drivers (not sure which) off the MOBO disk, but this is non-bootable.

Please what should I do? I had these ideas:
* use old PC to burn disk with driver on it, then somehow upload this, but where to... I have no HDD
* rip out old PC HDD and install that in the new PC and then set up the driver etc and then load and fix up the new HDD - but aren't most of the settings going to be totally different? Will this cause problems when I put it and back in old PC (a dell dimension 2400)
* or am I just a numbnuts BIOS newbie, in which case please tell me what to do.


Specs:
*ASUS A8V Deluxe WiFi-G Via K8T800PRO Socket 939 UDMA133 SATA-RAID
Gigabit-LAN FireWire USB2.0 Audio ATX
*AMD ATHLON 64 3500+ (2200MHz, 200MHz FSB, 512kB Cache) Socket 939
*PLEXTOR PX-712A 12x/8x DVD+/-R 4x/4x DVD+/-RW 48x/24x/48x CD-R/RW
*1024MB (2x 512MB) DIMM DDR PC400 CL3 KINGSTON (KVR400X64AK2/1G)
*Samsung SpinPoint SP1614C P80 160GB SerialATA / 7200rpm 7200 rpm / 8.9 ms / 8 MB / Serial ATA-150 / Noise Guard
*Cooler Master TAC-T01-E1C WaveMaster Midi Tower
*Thermaltake Silent Purepower 560 Watt ATX 12V / active PFC

 

I dont know the answer to your question, but my post should bring it back to the top and hopefully someone will see it and give you an answer.

BTW, How do you like that wavemaster case? Did everything go into it easily?

 

Does the HD appear in the BIOS specifications? If is does not here then it is not being recognized by the machine. Also is the drive already fdisked and formatted?

 

The case is pretty cool, no problems so far and it sure is pretty. And I solved the problem, worked out from another forum that you just need to download the driver or get it off the disk. Of course you cant do that until you have windows working, so I did it at work and cannibalised a mate 3.5 inch drive, and then used that to load the driver. Seemed not to be able to do it from the CD direcctly. But all is well with the world.

 

The mobo CD has the SATA/Raid drivers on it, (which you need even if you are not setting up raid, you need with any sata hdd)
You are correct the mobo cd is Not Bootable.
If you put your mobo cd into a working computer that already has a working OS (windows) you can extract your sata drivers to a floppy disk!
Then use to load on you new rig.
You can also download sata drivers from Asus web site, you must save to floppy (not cd)

Things you need:
your HDD's need formated.
sata Drivers on floppy.
boot order set in bios 1st cdrom 2nd sata hdd then floppy.
insert windows cd begin install when prompted press F6 for 3rd party drivers (your sata drivers)