Windows cannot find drives. (PLEASE HELP!)

jackmonty57

jackmonty57

jackmonty57

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I finally got my pc for OCUK on friday and I finished building it today. When I try and install windows 7 it says it cannot detect my hdd. I've checked all the connections and everythings fine. The optical drive(sata3) works fine because its loading the OS disk.

Thanks in advance.

NB:

mobo: GIGABYTE 870 A UD3
HDD: samsung f3 1tb sata II.
 
I notice in the manual for your motherboard there are 8 sata3 connectors and the motherboard is capable of RAID
http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-870a-ud3_e.pdf

If using RAID windows sometimes needs an extra driver at the start on the install process in order to see devices connected to certain controllers.

If your just using a single drive(non-RAID), you could check the BIOS and make sure its not set for RAID , make sure your connected too SATA3_0 , which is your best bet for getting your harddrive detected

According to the manual, there is a group of 4 SATA connectors on the motherboard and SATA3_0 is the top left one of those (the other 4 connectors being slightly above and to the right of those 4 grouped)
 
ms2010 said:
I notice in the manual for your motherboard there are 8 sata3 connectors and the motherboard is capable of RAID
http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-870a-ud3_e.pdf

If using RAID windows sometimes needs an extra driver at the start on the install process in order to see devices connected to certain controllers.

If your just using a single drive(non-RAID), you could check the BIOS and make sure its not set for RAID , make sure your connected too SATA3_0 , which is your best bet for getting your harddrive detected

According to the manual, there is a group of 4 SATA connectors on the motherboard and SATA3_0 is the top left one of those (the other 4 connectors being slightly above and to the right of those 4 grouped)
Click to expand...

Cheers for the quick reply. Can i hook my HDD to a sata 3 plug? The problem is my GPU is big and covers the sata conectors. All the settings are set to IDE.
 
Well it depends on what HDD you have, I was assuming you have a SATA3 HDD (i should read the full OP lol)
Just having another look at your motherboard 6 of the connectors are SATA3 (0/1/2/3/4/5)
2 of them are GSATA2 (6/7)

Just skim reading your manual trying to figure out if only SATA3 can connect to the SATA3 connectors, or if they are reverse compatable with SATA1&2

Manual says
SATA3_0/1/2/3/4/5 (SATA 6Gb/s Connectors, Controlled by AMD SB850 South Bridge)
The SATA connectors conform to SATA 6Gb/s standard and are compatible with SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s standards
Click to expand...

6GB/s - SATA3
3GB/s - SATA2
1.5GB/s - SATA1

So yes unless your HDD is IDE :p they should work in the SATA3 connector's
SATA cables are usually reasonable easy too plugin and route around larger cards, might have too install them b4 installing the displaycard in this case , just make sure the display card is full seated and the sata cable doesn't hold the card out of the motherboard.

You should be able too connect to any of those 6 stat3 connectors and still get it working , if any are easier too connect to than the others I would have thought

The other 2 connectors
GSATA2_6/7 (SATA 3Gb/s Connectors, Controlled by GIGABYTE SATA2)
The SATA connectors conform to SATA 3Gb/s standard and are compatible with SATA 1.5Gb/s standard.
Click to expand...

Look like they will support SATA1 & 2 only , and appear primaraly setup so they can be used for a RAID pair either RAID0 (striping - 2 drives act as 1 big drive) or RAID1 (mirroring - 2 drives mirror each other , if one fails the other has a perfect copy of the data)
 
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Its not actually connected to sata 01. Im new to this as well. How would i find out if my HDD is raid or ide? I was using sata 6( sataI andII compatible) for the HDD
 
Your OP says its SATA2

IDE , SATA , SCSI are interfaces (basically the connector you plug it into if you want it in its most basic form)

Any drive can be RAID if its connected to the correct controller with enough other drives too form what is known as a RAID pack or array

Using GSATA2_6 was probably the problem , you should be fine using any of the other 6x SATA3 connectors (0/1/2/3/4/5) just avoid 6/7 for now :)
 
right i just tried the HDD in sata3 0 (master?) and the optical drive at 2. No luck, windows still cannot find the drives. Il try it now in sata3 1 and see if that works. Thanks for all the stuff you wrote but its really confusing haha. If someone could maybe just give me steps (if sata3 1 doesnt work) that would be great, thanks again.
 
hmmm ok I never expected you too say that , if its detected in the bios on SATA3 (0/1/2/3/4 or 5) it should really work for windows , unless windows requires an additional driver for the SATA3 controler.
I'll have too have a better read of the manual see if it shine's any light on the problem.
 
You sure you are plugging it in to the correct port ?
Don't plug it in to the sata raid ports
 
ok only thing i can see in the BIOS that might effect how the HDD is detected by the windows setup is in the Intergrated Peripherals section

1. Make sure "Onchip SATA Controler" is set to Enabled (should be if its being detected by the BIOS

2. Set the next option down "Onchip SATA Type" to "AHCI" (Advanced Host Controller Interface)
Can only think if its set to "Native IDE" that the windows setup isnt seeing the 1TB drive correctly

I'm starting to run out of idea's though, feel like i'm missing something obvious

BTW sry if what i've put so far is confusing you, thought I was explaining reasonably well, even for someone new to PC builds, can be much harder to explain how to do something, than it is to be hand's on and just do it ;)
 
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ms2010 said:
BTW sry if what i've put so far is confusing you, thought I was explaining reasonably well, even for someone new to PC builds, can be much harder to explain how to do something, than it is to be hand's on and just do it ;)
Click to expand...

Dont apologise haha. thanks for helping. reset "onboard gsata/ IDE mode" to ahci. there is another option is "onboard esata mode". will i change this to ahci?
 
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