Windows 7 - BIOS won't detect IDE Hard Drive

On my old secondary computer my setup was
Motherboard: Chaintech VNF2-350
Master 0: HDS722516VLAT80 with Windows installation
Slave 0: WD800BB-53CCB0

But then I started getting Machine Check Exceptions and my motherboard ultimately perished. So I replaced that with a Foxconn K8S755A-6ELRS. But this new motherboard won't detect the hard drive.

It will hang at the part that says "Detecting IDE drives", sometimes it will give up and display "0" where the drive is supposed to be, other times it will hang until you unplug the cable.

If it's on the same channel as the Hitachi drive with XP on it, the BIOS recognizes the other drive, but fails to boot from it.

If they are on different channels, it boots the XP drive but will see no hint of the drive on the other channel., even in Disk Management or Device Manager.

I also tried connecting it to my other computer's Intel DP35DP mobo, and it was able to detect/read/write and all that, though it does have a few bad sectors.
Any help?

Hi there
Looks like cable or connection is defective. If these are the "Old fashioned" IDE drives check that the ribbon connector is of the correct type -- I believe there are two sorts -- the older version and the newer Enhanced IDE with 40 pins.

Check that you have the correct ribbon type connector for the Mobo. Also connect if the Slave / Master / Auto switch on the HDD (or jump pins on the Mobo if there are any) are correctly set.

Note also at BOOT - ensure also that AHCI in the Bios is correctly set as well -- otherwise the machine will fail to boot.

You really need to set it to IDE for using IDE Disks -- If this has changed from what you were using before you will have to re-install Windows.

You are actually better off getting away from those old fashioned IDE Disks if you can.

It's also possible you might in the Bios have to set the IDE Disk to LBA mode -- to complicated to explain here but notes on this should be available in the documentation that came with the MOBO in BIOS settings.

Cheers
jimbo

I tried using 4 different 80-wire IDE cables. And I have the drive jumpers set to "cable select". I couldn't find anything in the BIOS about ACHI. I did set the access mode on the channel to LBA, but no results yet.

Hi there
Change the drive jumpers to MASTER (change switch on HDD drive if there is one too).
This should work.

Sometimes the Cable Select doesn't always work properly -- don't ask me why though.

Cheers
jimbo

no change