New motherBoard doesn't detect SATA HDD

Hello everyone. I'd bought an barebone kit to build for my boyfriend.

The specs of the kit:

- Motherboard: M2N-MX SE Plus Motherboard Socket AM2/AM2+ with NVIDIA nForce 6100/430 chipset, RAID, SATA 3Gbs/s.
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+
- Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB Hard Drive - 7200, 8MB, SATA-300, OEM
- Ram: OCZ Platinum Revision-2 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 x 1024MB)
- Optional Drives: CD-RW/DVD Rom, Floppy Drive
- Power Supply: Ultra V-Series 500-Watt

Once I was done putting the parts in the system, I booted it up and checked the BIOS. All the stuff I'd added on there was detected except for the SATA drive which puzzled me for a long time since I built a few computers with SATA drives already in it. I'd checked the cables, power supply, and to see if the drive was active. Everything was correct and stable, but still no detection. I'd tried to install Windows XP SP2 on the newly built computer, but the setup wasn't able to find the SATA HDD either as well.

I don't know what to do at this point and since my friend recommended me to post my problem here I hope you guys can be any help for me.

Lina.

 

check your mobo manual, and there are some settings for sata, mine had three (i had the same prob), i cant recall for sure, but one of the settings for sata was native (that's what mine is set at) and of course double check the drive's power and sata connector. also verify what setting the drive is at, 1.5 gb, or 3gb. make sure the board can read it.

 

Ok, I'd checked the connectors and power cables and its running normally. The HDD is set at 3Gb and the board says that it can read up to 3gbs.

I'd went into the BIOS and checked the SATA part of it (still not detecting the HDD) and it has about seven options available:

- Type: (Not Shown)
- LBA/Large Mode [Auto]
-Block (Multi-sector Transfer) M [Auto]
- PIO Mode [Auto]
- DMA Mode [Auto]
- Smart Monitoring [Auto]
- 32bit DAta Transfer [Enabled]

The Manual shows the same thing but not much help along with it either. The Serial ATA Device function is enables though in the IDe Configuration area. I was thinking of trying to update the BIOS and download the chipset drivers on the website. However, I'm quite not sure if I should do that just yet. Any opinons on that just in case?

Lina

 

only thing that comes to mind is to put the sata drivers on a floppy, and during windows setup, where it asks for additional driver, choose that option and it will load drivers from the floppy, and then maybe? it will see it.

 

Ok, here's some of the things that I'd tried out to see if it can be detected:

1. I'd tried out that method and basically everytime I'd try to install the additional drivers using the F6 method on the Windows XP setup process I always gets a screen during the process that says:

Nvraid.sys is corrupt
Or
Nvata.sys is corrupt

It then won't let me install Windwos XP at that point so I hit a dead end there.

2-A:I was trying to update the bios into the current version it had for the motherboard. First off I'd went to use the EZ Flash Method, put the floppy with the bios in it, it says that it found the floppy and went to check for the bios, but it says that it wasn't found anywhere. I'd even recheck the floppy and the files was in there.

2-B: I'd tried to use the AFUDOS method, but everytime when I tried to type in the way it was in the manual it wouldn't even start up. Maybe I'm doing somethign wrong on that part.....

Now today has gotten me into another bad spot. When I booted up the pc and checked the Bios, my CD-Rom IDE drive wasn't detected either!
:cry

I dunno what to do now at this point. So please any help with this problem will be helpful for me.

Lina

 

Nevermind about the new problem, I'd just had to reset the CMOS and now its detected once again so no worries there. But still trying to detect my SATA HDD onto my bios still. :confused