Non detection of Hard drives.

Clearcut · 17 Sep 2008 at 20:52

Hi there.
Having a bit of trouble with a new ASUS motherboard bundle with Intel core2 6400 that I have recently bought. No matter what I do I cannot get this motherboard to recognise a hard drive. I tried all possible configurations with my original IDE drive but it would not be recognised. I then tried a couple of others before buying a new 250gb SATA drive. Again there is no sign of the hard drive in the bios. I tried installing windows on boot and became excited when it seemed to be proceeding. It then halted because I apparently had no hard drive.
Have you any ideas how this can be sorted as I am tearing my hair out.
Many thanks.

Clearcut · 17 Sep 2008 at 21:08

Asus P5L-1394

Clearcut · 17 Sep 2008 at 21:39

I cleared the CMOS when trying the IDE hard drive.
There are four SATA connectors on the MB - 2 red & 2 black (I have tried sticking the new SATA cable in all of them)

....not sure how to update the bios without Windows or internet connection.

Clearcut · 26 Sep 2008 at 21:26

Sorry for delay in response.
The seller of motherboard sent me another one - exactly the same model. This one recognises the hard drive but will not start it. It just whirrs and clicks loudly but will not actually start. I have tried re-installing windows but that just stops pretty soon.

Summary:
I have tried 4 different hard drives+DVD roms in all configurations that work on my current board and my brother's.
tried different data cables
I have cleared the CMOS
EZ flash didn't work - wouldn't accept the latest BIOS off the floppy
tried 2 motherboards
swapped the processors over (both E6400)

I have absolutely no idea what to do now with a combo that cost me £90. My current AMD 3800x2 only has one core recognised despite trying every suggestion on here (hence the new board/CPU)
Don't you just hate computers sometimes?

Sad thing is, I have built 2 pcs for friends in the last month and they have both booted straight into Windows installation with no fuss.

Clearcut · 26 Sep 2008 at 23:44

As I said, I have tried 4 drives that work perfectly well on other boards

Back to an IDE drive which has a Widows installation on it (that's what I am using at the moment on my old motherboard to type this) I try a fresh install without actually trying to boot to this one on the new motherboard but it won't even start the process.