RAID and unrecognized hard disk issue

[powwowdancer007]

Hello,
When I reformatted my desktop PC, my additional 250 gig Maxtor HD wasnt recognized in BIOS. Now, to make matters worse, the RAID configuration keeps changing from autodect ATA to autodetect AHCI on every shutdown, not allowing me to boot up without changing the RAID configuration back to autodetect ATA first....and BIOS STILL doesnt see my 250 Maxtor drive.........help!

 

[Hawkeye22]

How old is the system? The battery on the motherboard may be dying.

 

[powwowdancer007]

Thanks for replying hawkeye....The system is a Dell Dimension 8400...about 7 years old and yes, I got a notification that the system battery is low. Is that the coin battery? However, I purchased an external SATA hard disk box with a USB connector and BIOS still doesnt recognize the drive.....frustrating and strange!! (I don't believe the drive is spinning up either internally or externally) If it is the motherboard battery, why would that cause the system not to recognize a drive, or the drive not to spin? (out of curiosity)

 

[Hawkeye22]

Yes, that's the coin battery. It retains BIOS settings when the computer is shut down. This may be why it keeps changing from ATA to AHCI when you shut down. The battery will not effect your external drive or drive detection.

I'd replace the battery, go into the bios and "load optimized defaults", then change what ever settings you need to, save them and reboot.

If the drive isn't spinning, that is a different problem. It sounds like it's not getting power. Be sure both data and power cables are attached to the drive. You can always try to run the drive inside your PC just to eliminate the external enclosure as a problem.