SATA Hard Drive Not Detected in BIOS or Setup

The first place it needs to be detected is in the bios. Which sata port do you have it connected to ? Have you made any changes in the bios , like selecting AHCI or raid or is it in the IDE mode? If the drive is not detected at all in the bios or in windows in disk management then you may need to call the manufacturer tech support for a RMA because you may have a defective drive and you want to get it taken care of right away.

when I first went into the bios I see the drive in the sata 1 port after no change I moved it to sata 0 port. It already is in the AHCI mode.I tried both modes and no change.The drive is brand new hard to believe it could be bad.

It may not happen all the time but it is certianly possible to have been shipped a drive that is doa. That is why I recomended to call the tech support of the manufacturer or to call the place you bought it from and get an exchange.

If you are seeing the drive in the bios then go into disk management and see if it is listed there.

Hi,thank you for trying to advise.can I reinstall the old drive and run this new one as a slave to somehow reformat it?

If you have Windows on your original drive then with both drives connected go into disk management in Windows and see if the new drive is there. If it is then you can initialize it and format it. Then you can use it for whatever you want.

this is my first time installing a hard drive ,not sure what I'm doing.How would I go about initializing and formatting this new drive

If you go to the start menu and right click on computer then select manage. In the window that comes up select disk management , then you will see a window that will have all the drives listed that are connected to the computer , even the dvd drives will be there. If you see the drive in question listed then right click on it and follow the insructions. You will do everything there in that window , initialize ,format and give it a drive letter.

Now I've messed it all up for my old hard drive.I must of changed things when I reset it to default.Might be a bigger event than I'm up for.Many thanks for your help.

What did you reset to default?

the Bios f9 then f10,

A black screen came up wanted a prompting to start windows normally or reset to last known working config.Now it won't even boot up. old drive is the only drive hooked up now.other one is unplugged.

umm check your boot order.

how can I do that when it won't boot up at all now

When you push the power button the Pc will do a series of checks and then it will give a post beep, at that point you can start pressing delete and enter the bios where you can check the boot order and the drive with the OS on it should be listed first.

I can get into the bios ,the cd drive is first on the list it won't let me change it.I am still getting the black inconvience screen and windows will not boot up.it keeps shutting down and restarting no matter what I select .safe mode etc...

Since I don't know what you know I have to ask if yuo know how to change the order of which drive you want to have first in the boot order. There is no reason for the bios to not let you change the boot order.
Is the hard drive listed in the boot order at all?

Yes the hard drive is listed in the boot order. Here is what it looks like.

Boot Menu Type <Normal>
Boot Device Priority <CD/DVD-ROM Drive>
<Hard Disk Drive>
<Ethernet>
Hard Drive Order <P1-ST3250410as>
CD/DVD-ROM Drive Order <Philips SPD2413p>

If you highlight the dvd drive and hit enter don't you get a selection of devices to choose from?

I just changed the Bios to IDE and now windows is back up..AT this point I am unsure to where that setting is supposed to be.I initially didn't change that setting to AHCI.

The only thing that Highlights is the drive its self

There are only three choices , IDE,ACHI and Raid , so somehow it got changed to AHCI and that would make it not boot. So keep it on IDE.

I hooked the new drive up ,windows just found the new drive.Now I have to work on the right format to load a fresh install of windows.Thank you for spending your time to help me.

Your Welcome.