HDD not detected with GA-X58-USB3

[Richco]

Hi, New to the forum with a problem.  My SATA HDD will not detect in the BIOS when trying to boot.  Sata DVD drive detects fine, but HDD does not.  
HDD is on channel 0, dvd on channel 1.  Thing is, it does detect after numerous retries.  Takes several reboots, but *eventually* it works.  

When I can get it to boot, everything seems fine.  HDD works fine, gets power and works normally.   Just seems to be a BIOS problem with it not recognizing.  Is this a driver issue?  Device manager in Windows says says SATA drivers are OK, IDE controller shows OK as well.

I am officially stumped.   Any insights would be greatly appreciated!!  Here are my system specs:

Western Digital 300gb HDD (Caviar Blue) in IDE mode
GA-X58-usb3 mobo (F2 BIOS)
6gb Corsair Dominator Memory
Core i7 920 cpu
Windows 7 Pro 64bit

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out with this issue!!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte UK Forum.

I expect it is just that the hard drive is a bit slow on initiating  and so the boot process isn't always picking it up. You can help with that by putting a delay of maybe about 5 seconds into the boot time. If you go into the BIOS and in the Advanced BIOS Features look for Delay for HDD and you can set it to whatever you think is necessary.

[Richco]

Thanks for your reply DM.   I suspected that myself, so I did attempt to set the delay longer.  If I remember right I set it for 5 rather than the default 0.  I willl go back and set it to the max of 15 and see if that works.  I will report back and let you know how I  fare.

[Richco]

Hmmm, setting delay did not seem to help.    BIOS gets to the memory check ok, then detecting IDE devices... it shows nothing on channel 0 (HDD).  IDE DVD drive always detects fine.

I cant help but feel this is a driver issue of some sort, yet my chipset drivers were are installed first thing when I first fired up the machine with the new mobo...from the install disk provided by Gigabyte.

Is it possible I need to install drivers outside of the Windows environment, via a floppy or USB drive?  I was assuming that SATA drivers should be part of the chipset driver bundle I already installed; am I mistaken? 

Or is it possibly a Windows problem... I am somewhat grasping at straws now since I am fairly stumped at this puzzle.
 

[Dark Mantis]

It could be just a simple cable problem. I would try swapping out the data cable for a new one and swapping over the power cable from the PSU to the drive.

[bubbl3]

When you get into the desktop do this to activate AHCI in Win7: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

Reboot, go in bios and switch to AHCI mode. See if this solves your problem.

[Dark Mantis]

When you get into the desktop do this to activate AHCI in Win7: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

Reboot, go in bios and switch to AHCI mode. See if this solves your problem.

Chances are if it won't detect it in IDE mode it also won't detect it in AHCI mode either and it is a bit more risky to do.

[bubbl3]

When you get into the desktop do this to activate AHCI in Win7: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

Reboot, go in bios and switch to AHCI mode. See if this solves your problem.

Chances are if it won't detect it in IDE mode it also won't detect it in AHCI mode either and it is a bit more risky to do.

Honestly i don't see the risk, even if it doesn't work, he can fall back to IDE anytime.

[Richco]

Alright, I'm sorry I've been incommunicado for a bit, just busy with work and all the while trying to sort out my HDD problem...  Turns out the drive was exhibiting more and more bizzare behavior and finally just died.   But luckily, I had foreseen that possibility and dutifully backed up all my data, so, no real harm done!  Now using new HDD on clean Windows install and works just dandy!

I just wanted to say thanks to you Dark Mantis, for taking the time help me out with my problem.  Much appreciated, Kudos to you!

[Dark Mantis]

You are  very welcome and I am glad to hear that you have finally got it all sorted out and working fine at last. Anyway have a Happy Christmas.