My Motehrboard does not recognise my HDD prior to windows being installed please help

[THE_LIMEY_82]

Hi Everybody, Could one of you kind people help me with a problem i having with my new setup?...

My setup is :

Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R Socket 775 Motherboard (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=MB7-GIG-P35C-DS3R)
Z-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=Z1-CPU-I-Q6600)
OCZ 2GB PC2-7200 Special Ops (2x1GB) (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=MEM-OCZ-900-SO2K)
250Gb Western Digital Caviar SE SATA 8MB (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=HDA-250-WD2500AAJS)
Asus Extreme 8600GT 512MB Silent PCI-E (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=GCX-ASU-8600GTSILE)
New Ferrari- 500w Midi ATX - Silver (https://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=CSE-MID-F2B)

The problem is that when I boot the system up for the initial installation of windows XP the Bios does not detect the (WD sata HD drive 8mb 250gb SE) and it does not get past asking for the system boot disk, even though i have the XP windows disk in the drive? the mother board does detect the DVD-RW which is on SATA also, which why i am finding it dificult to understand why it does not detect the hard drive, it does seem to be on as it get warm when the system is switched on so there is power to it.
its the first time i have used SATA drives so i am a complete newb on this equipment...

Can you please advise as to how I can fix this problem?.....

Thank you

[coiler]

Is your XP disk Service pack 2?

Have you got Boot from CD as your first boot device in the bios?

[THE_LIMEY_82]

Hi thanks very uch for replying so quickly, As far as i know it is SP2 and yes i have set the bios to boot directly from the DVD drive. but it does not, it just says (Boot disk Error? please insert a system book disk?)

Also would you have any idea why the BIOS does not detect my SATA HDD?

[coiler]

The HDD needs partitioning and formating first to be recognised, windows install procedure will do this when it gets to the harddrive setup screen.

Is your DVD drive sata or IDE?

[THE_LIMEY_82]

SATA

[THE_LIMEY_82]

Do you think the problem lays with the DVD drive>?

[coiler]

Can you try an IDE drive?

[THE_LIMEY_82]

I have tried a couple of IDE drives but they will not load, one of them had windows on it but crashes to blue screen....

even with this drive it does not go into the windows setup from CD. just tries to boot directly from HDD even thought BIOS is setup for it to boot from CD in the first instance

[coiler]

There should be another setting in bios called Harddisk boot priority, what does it show in here?

Is the windows cd damaged in any way/boots in other pcs?

Have you tried reseting the BIOS jumper, and then setting the 1st boot device again?

[THE_LIMEY_82]

yes i have looked at the boot priority, I think it states Ich9 something as the first device then all other additional bootable devices as position 2.

would it be worth trying a floppy boot disk?

I have not tried resetting the BIOS jumper, reason being I would not know what I would be doing and therefore do not want to much it up?....

[coiler]

not sure what ICH9 is?

that could be the problem,

it should say DVDRW-samsung blah etc i would have thought

resetting bios is really simple, google it.

[Sl4x0r]

ICH9 is the Intel southbridge - or the ICH9R that supports RAID...

You really outta know that, Coiler...

[coiler]

ICH9 is the Intel southbridge - or the ICH9R that supports RAID...

You really outta know that, Coiler...


I don't do intel ;)

Still on my 939 AMD x2 ! :lol:

[nft99]

I don't do intel ;)

Still on my 939 AMD x2 ! :lol:

an excellent choice :D

[coiler]

an excellent choice :D

It really is!

combined with 2gb 3200 OCZ memory and a 7950Gx2 it still flies on ALL games (bar crysis :redface:) LOL

although i've warmed to intel and dream of a Q9450 8)

[Sl4x0r]

It really is!

combined with 2gb 3200 OCZ memory and a 7950Gx2 it still flies on ALL games (bar crysis :redface:) LOL

although i've warmed to intel and dream of a Q9450 8)

As soon as my X38 board supports SLI (Which I hope someone hacks it to support shortly) do you wanna sell me your GX2? I's quite like two...

[bobingabout]

i had 2, for all of 10 mins before i discovered my older 1 from aria had a failed fan.

there is no point, since the drivers only suport 2. atleast not till the 9800GX2 comes out, then maybe they'll re-code it to work with the 2x7950GX2 too.