Bios fails to see SATA drive

took sata drive and formated it in friends computer

removed and installed sata drive as only drive in computer with no other harddrive

bios doesnt show drive at all

running XP clean install says no drive available to install on

computer previously ran scuzzie (sp?) harddrive (dont know if this is any help)

ran detect devices in bios and still doesnt show up in bios

whats a nerd to do?

 

Make sure that your SATA ports are enabled in your BIOS. If the ports are enabled, then your drive won't be recognized.

 

and what will the enabling feature look like?

 

someone said that about my laptop cause i was trying to dump vista and install xp..but i never did find where to turn on sata through bios..and i did check everything

 

It varies from computer to computer and it may not be an option at all. Usually you'll find it in the advanced options where you can turn on or turn off devices such as LAN, Audio, Video, etc... If it's an option, you'll have the ability to enable or disable SATA. Since you were using SCSI before, you may have had your SATA ports disabled.

 

and what if it isnt an option in the bios? yet the MB has sata ports

 

If it's not an option, then it's already enabled. That would pretty much leave you with either a bad SATA controller card or a bad power or data cable (I'm assuming the drive is still good since you just formatted it). If the controller card is bad, then you'd have to replace the motherboard or purchase a PCI SATA add-on controller card like the one pictured below (link here).

 

You could also try a different SATA cable, I had a similar problem before, turns out it was the SATA cable.

Good Luck

 

just trying to help a friend ..all he knows is the motherboard is MSI?

update: he flashed the bios to no advantage and he said he will be trying with different cables

maybe the MB isnt compatible with the HD... WD 79GB Raptor 10,000 RPM...has this ever happened with those RAPTORS.

I think it's somethng to do with XP and sata drivers myself but that doesnt explain away why his bios doesnt show it. I suggested he purchase a SATA controller card for the PCI slot and if that shows the HD in the bios then it's the MB

When i try to load xp on my laptop to get rid of vista i get a message "no HD to place operating system on found" . The laptop is sata drive too. maybe simular problem?

i'm open for any other comments and guesses