No hard drive driver installed and cant find one!

Try: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A78LM_LX...
When you download and extract files see if there is a "F6" driver.
If no F6 driver, put all the drivers on a thumbdrive. Boot vista install, select custom install, check box for Have dfisk. When asked for driver browse to thumbdrive and see if install can find the correct driver.

Alternative is to identify the amd chipset, go to amd and select your operating system and look for "F6" driver.

Select custom install and check the box for "Have Driver", browse to thumbdrive.

hard drives dont use drivers

^ DA - What do you think microsoft default ahci driver is???
Windows (all versions) need a driver loaded to be able to communicate with the HDD.
The driver must be compatable with the chipset. If Chipset is newer than version of windows then a driver normally must be preloaded. Windows 7 is pretty good at having a default driver, vista predates newer MBs, and windows XP quite often required a preloaded driver unles the HDD was run in IDE mode.

Hi jonahea

unless your motherboard is very non standard or new Windows 7 will have the drivers for the hard disk cotroller

Have you checked that the BIOS recognises you hard disk exists ?

no point going any further until BIOS recognises the hard disk.

Most people think Win 7 is beter than Vista but which one to use depends on version
( Vista ultimate may be better than 7 Home basic)

usually motherboards come with a driver disk, drivers are also at Asus website
Googling motherboard shows
AMD SB710 controller :
6 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s)
Support Raid 0, 1, 10, JBOD

regards

Mike Barnes

From what I know the motherboard is quite standard and sold frequently so I thought at least windows 7 or vista would have them automatically but no luck... And they're not on the motherboard CD either.

I have downloaded extra drivers from the site that retiredcheif posted and plan to test them asap.

How do I check that BIOS recognises my harddrive?

I am kinda surprised that win 7 did not recognize the HDD, My comment about the F6 driver was primarily directed for Vista.

Tried to look at your manual. For some reason only found Brazial, French and German Versions.

Look in manual. power on, hit key to go into bios and on main page I think it should Identify your HDD. Also navagate to page in manual that shows "ide/ahci/Sata. You want that to be set to ahci.

Once told someone I could speek every language except Greek. Someone asked me to speak french. I promply replied - That's Greek to me.

Thanks guys this I have found the root of the driver problem...
In BIOS through Sata 1 which is connected to the harddrive it is showing up as 'not connected' how do I change this?

Check the SATA data cable and also make sure the power cable is connected to the drive.

Make sure that AHCI is enabled in the bios for the install