No Hard Disk Found

[mike6493]

I just finished putting a computer together today, and every time I try to turn it on I get the error message "No hard disk found". Its a new HD and so I've gone through and tried adjusting and trying different things in bios but I just get the same message. Part of what I dont get is that in Bios theres an option to change the boot order of the drives and in that section there it is "WD blah blah 640" ect... yet when I try and boot it still claims to not find it. I've tried moving around which SATA slot its in and messed with cables and everything. So then I thought well maybe the HD is bad so I plugged in my old HD which I know works with my old setup and I still get the same message. Maybe Im missing something but every post Ive read so far on the topic has not helped. Some talk about editing bios settings that I don't have and others recommend running disk checks and programs and stuff that I can't do because I have not installed my OS yet (because I cant get it to recognize my disk). Im really stuck here anything I could try would help.

Are you installing to this Hard drive??? Cuz if so, you need to put in
ur windows disk and format and install to it. The message no hard disk
can generated from no MBR being found. Put the windows disk in and see
if u can install to the hard drive in question.

You refer to your mobo manual for the appropriate settings and for whether
you need to connect your hd to a specific connector.
If you messed with your bios settings I'd advise ueing the option to reset
to defaults, then check you have used the hd correct connection point.
You can run disk checking toolsm you simply need to use those that can be
run from a bootable floppy / cd
As it is insert the win dvd & reboot

If you plugged in a known working hard drive (as you stated in the post) and
it now doesn't work, I would suspect a definite hardware issue. After
restoring the bios settings to what they were before the drive swap, ensure
that all cables to the hard drive are firmly seated (both ends on the data
cable.) If this doesn't fix the problem, try a new cable to the
motherboard. If still, use a different power supply cable to the drive.

Can you actually hear the drive spinning up when you power up the machine?

I think thats all great advice. But he says that he can see it in
BIO's. o there for that elminates the cable and everything else. With
the windows disk in the cd drive and going to install, does it find it
in the installer???

Install the new HD on the SATA 1 connector.

Turn the computer on. Enter the BIOS. Choose the option to load default
settings. Save and exit. After the boot process stops -probably with a no HD
found message, shut the power off.

Restart. Enter the BIOS again and check the Boot devices and boot order.

Make sire the DVD/CD is set as the first in the boot order and that the HD
is present and is set as second.

If there are no other HDs installed, there should be no other HDs in the
list.

Save settings and exit.

Place the Windows DVD in the drive. Boot the machine from the DVD. Use the
facilities on the DVD to set up the HD and install Windows.

The 'Perform a clean installation' sections of this might be useful:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918884

Did you miss the part about his old drive that was working failing to work
now? With his changes in the bios he may have screwed something up there
which kept previous values. Therefore reset to safe working values.

I have had drives (granted IDE) that would not spin up but did show in the
bios. 5 volt was OK but the 12 volt in the connector was bad. Power went to
the logic board but not the motor. I have also had them with a bad ribbon
cable (again IDE) that showed in the bios but the drive would not boot,
format or partition with the cable that was there as there happened to be a
broken wire that made intermittent contact. Changed cable and everything
worked.

I am having the same problem. I have:
intel dx58so mother board
intel i7 processor
seagate 1.5tb 32mb sata hd
i dont think all the other stuff matters at this point.

On start up it says 'hard disk not found' but in the bios it shows all
the hd info. I have tried changing out all the cables. I have tried
using a different sata port on the mother board. I have tried changing
bios settings and reset them when non of the changes helped. I have the
dvd drive set to load 1st but never get the option to 'boot from cd' so
i can not do a clean install. I'm at a total loss what to do next. I
can hear the hd spinning but still getting no where. it sucks i spent a
lot on this build and am unable to get it to run. any help would be
wonderful.

Contact Seagate, as those big disks were prone to going belly up (firmware
problem)
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

But as I don't have such a disk, I don't know how to get or apply the fix

The dx58so is a very stable board. However it is really updated. No
PATA ports, no ps2 ports, etc. It does however have six SATA ports
and 2 eSATA ports. It is stated in this thread that some of those big
hard disks are problematic. Go to Intel's support site and download
the latest BIOS and drivers. Have them ready the first thing after
the install of the OS. Now for the BIOS SETTINGS: advanced > drive
configuration -- configure SATA as RAID. BOOT CONFIGURATION --
floppy, cd/dvd, hard disk. You should be good to go if the drive is
not bad.

[mike6493]

Hey dude thats the same exact thing thats going on with me with the same intel dx58so mother board and i7 setup only thing is I didnt go with a huge HD, just a 600gb western digital, and its new so I dont think its just bad. Yeah I cant do anything because I get that message "hard disk not found" and it just forces me in to bios so I cant install OS.
I tried some of the stuff from the earlier replies and all the stuff youve done, nothing seems to work Im going to go and try some of the later posters suggestions. Tell me if you get it to work at all. Oh and thanks to everyone for trying to help.

Edit----- I tried Frank-FL's and others advice and still got nothing. No changes in the boot order will let me get around the No HD found screen and let me install windows. So unless anyone else has any ideas I'm going to go with its the HD thats bad and try to get another one because Im out of things to try.

Another thought that happened to me once on a friends PC. There might
be something in the HDD's MBR. Try using the manufacturers
diagnostic, to completely write zeros to the drive then use the test
the drive.