Hard drive problems

[deconduo]

I recently built a computer for the first time, and it was going fine for about 2 weeks until today. I was just browsing the internet, doing nothing else strenuous or otherwise, when the whole system hung. I tried a few things to unlock it before I just flicked the power switch and restarted. However on restarting my computer can no longer detect the hard drive. It asks for system boot disk and when I go into the BIOS all it sees is the CD/DVD drive. I checked the cables and the power, switched them out but nothing seems to get it to work.

Specs:
Athlon II X3 435 unlocked into a Deneb with the L3 Cache, not overclocked.
Gigabyte MA-770T UD3P
Spinpoint F3 500GB
4GB Crucial PC1333 CL9
Powercolor 1GB 5770
Antec Basiq 550W

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[ekoostik]

What OS do you have installed?
How is your harddrive setup? Is it set to run as IDE/SATA, AHCI, or RAID?
In BIOS, what is your boot order?

 

[deconduo]

Windows 7 installed.
Its set to run as native IDE
Boot order is default, floppy, HDD, CD

 

[ekoostik]

Any USB devices plugged in? If so unplug them all. Anything other than the harddrive and DVD drive plugged into the motherboard?

You could try unplugging the drive and plugging it back in. Or in BIOS re-load the system defaults and restart the machine.