SATA hard drive not detected

Many motherboards have a number of ways to handle the SATA. Some operate the SATA to all intents and purposes as an IDE drive - allowing you to install OS without needing the controller driver at install time.  Other need enabling or have a number of RAID options.  

You will need to set this up appropriately to your motherboard using the BIOS and/or any RAID setup utility on the mobo.

When you start installing the OS you may also need the controller drivers on a floppy disk to provide to the installer software. you should be able to get any required drivers from www.asus.com

If you are really stuck, please post model of motherboard here.

Good luck

Thanks for taking the time to reply. My problem is that I can't seem to get the computer to accept that there is a new drive there at all - apart, that is, from the complaint by the bios (above) during boot up.
My motherboard is the Asus K8V SE deluxe. Am I being expectionally stupid and missing a vital part of the installation process? The new hard dirve - Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB S300 16MG - manufacturer code - WD3200KS didn't come with any software...

       Hi cavaye
            You dont need any software for your HDD. Make sure that you plugged the SATA cable to first available SATA port. If this is your only SATA drive, then you should plug it to PRI_SATA (primary sata).

If it is Sata II or sata-300, you might need to jumper limited to 150 first to setup (you can change back later for full transfer rate). Make sure the drive detected during boot.

You also might need to press F6 during Vista or XP installation to install sata controller driver (this driver is from your motherboard cd driver).

        PUNKY: I especially checked mainboard about your idea before and saw that it supports SATA II, so supposed to work that way m8.

Thanks again everyone.
MrHusy - I have it plugged into PRI_SATA and my Asus manual says I should go into MBFastBuild utility. However, after pressing 1 for auto setup it still only reports - Drive(s) used in Array 1 - not 2. The bios clearly knows that there is something there otherwise it wouldn't ask me to press Ctrl F for the MBFastBuild when I boot up. But I can't seem to get any further.

          So now it doesnt ask you to press g anymore after you plugged to PRI_SATA. Now let me ask some questions. Are there any other SATA drives installed?

Even so, the motherboard supports sata II, but it failed detection while installing xp. Jumper limit will help this issue. Then after installation complete , set back to full speed.

MBFastBuild Utility is for Raid setup, if you want setup raid.

Thanks again.
MrHusty: no other SATA drives.
Willcomp: Maybe I should try this jumper pins solution... Though I thought I read somewhere that SATA drives don't need jumper pins. Maybe I was mistaken.

Willcomp: I tried you idea with the jumper pins 5&6. Unfortunately, nothing changed. The boot up still asks for the Ctrl F for the MBFastBuild. If i ignore this it boots up using the old drive as normal. No sign of the new hard drive on the tree. If I hit Ctrl F then the MBFastBuild screen also reports only 1 drive.

             Sata drives dont need jumpers because they dont have the option to be a master or slave. Because interface is directly dedicated to single device, and as you know SATA cable has only 2 ends which is able to connect only 1 drive. Only jumper setting exist is the drive speed limitation jumper which has to be set if motherboard doesnt have the auto negotiate property. Normally there is no need to do this since your motherboard supports SATA II and your HDD is SATA II. But if there is a known issue as willcomp mentioned, then you should set the jumper.

You still have that message might be the boot sequence set to boot from RAID or SCSI, try different boot order such as default see if it helps. Also, you might disconnect IDE hard drive during this time see if that makes different.

To clear up a misconception  --> Asus K8V mobos use VIA K8T800 chipsets with 8237 southbridge chip that has an integrated SATA controller which is 150 MB/sec SATA I not SATA II.  Mobo also has a Promise SATA RAID controller (2 installed SATA controllers) which is also SATA I.  There is no SATA II support on mobo.

Which one of the SATA controllers do you have drive connected to?  Whichever one it is, set controller to IDE mode in BIOS rather than RAID mode.  Leave jumper on drive --> required for VIA controller and won't matter when connected to Promise controller.

drivers drivers drivers

You can try connecting some other SATA HDD and see if it gets detected without any problems. Also upgrading to the latest BIOS may solve this problem.

::Pranav::

A solution at last! I had the hard drive plugged into the wrong socket on the m/b. It was in the Raid socket instead of the Serial ATA connector. The device then showed up in device manager but still not in My Computer (the only thing I was checking at first). In order to see the drive in My Computer I had to format it by right clicking My Computer and use Manage followed by Disk Management utility. Now it works. Thanks to everyone one who took the time to reply.

Glad that your problem was solved. :)

Cheers...

::Pranav::

"Which one of the SATA controllers do you have drive connected to?  Whichever one it is, set controller to IDE mode in BIOS rather than RAID mode.  Leave jumper on drive --> required for VIA controller and won't matter when connected to Promise controller."

Refund if you like, but question was answered.

I agree, the question was answered, it was the author who was negligent in picking an expert for assisting  the best.

See the last comment from the Asker - he found the solution himself. If you think a comment above is the same as the answer or is pointing to it - please let me know which and I will rethink. But from how I read it the Asker found this alone

He changed to a non-RAID controller. The quote I provided above specifically stated to set controller mode to IDE instead of RAID. Swapping controllers accomplished the same result.

Ask for assistance from a moderator in the Hard Drives and Storage Zone or Motherboard Zone if you are not familar with hardware and settings involved.

As an alternative - just delete.