New Hard Drive Not Recognized During Boot-Up or Windows 7 Installation

Oh Great One · 12 Jul 2014

Motherboard: ECS KM400-M2 (3.0) 462(A) VIA KM400 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ECS Web Site > KM400-M2 (V3.0)

I just purchased a new hard drive to use for hosting, as I am creating a server computer. I took that old motherboard, put it in a new CoolerMaster Case, along with a new hard drive WD 500GB (7200rpm 32mb/mo). The motherboard is IDE and SATA, and the new hard drives only have SATA connections of course. So, I purchased a power supply SATA adapter and I have a SATA cable running to the motherboard in the first SATA spot (SATA 1 [total of 2 slots]). The BIOS does not tell you which hard drives are recognized, but it allows you to have an initial bootup of first/second/third. Options include HDD-0 HDD-1 and so on. SATA is enabled in the BIOS and when I boot up, it starts the DVD-ROM drive, and not my Hard Drive. I have the windows 7 installation disk in there anyways, and it boots that up. I go through the setup and once I get to the point where you pick a drive, my WD 500GB Hard Drive isn't displayed. I do a refresh, and I tried scanning for Hard Drives, and scanning for Hard Drives that wasn't compatible with the Hardware. Nothing showed up. So, now I am stumped.

DocBrown · 12 Jul 2014

Welcome Oh Great One :)

Try enabling the AHCI mode in the bios setup and see if it recognizes the WD HD that way. Also double check the Power connector & data cables and even try them on a different connection location.

Soon other members will join in to help you, also.

Oh Great One · 13 Jul 2014

How do I turn on ACHI mode? And I did double check the connections and tried them with other devices.

DocBrown · 13 Jul 2014

There should be a sub-menu in the Bios setup that lets you choose from several HD options,; IDE, SATA, ACHI, etc.

select ACHI, save settings, and reboot. see if HD is recognized in boot up screen. If you get a prompt NO operating system found / installed, then you will probably be able to boot win7 install DVD/or USB Stick.

Oh Great One · 13 Jul 2014

I will post a picture, give me a sec.

Oh Great One · 13 Jul 2014

Here is my BIOS settings. There is no section for ACHI.

EDIT: I don't know why they are sideways, I didn't take them sideways, sorry.

DocBrown · 13 Jul 2014

Seems like there is another Bios screen missing. Or did you not scrool or tab down to the bottom of the advanced screen as sometimes other options are available below the botton border of the screen.

Oh Great One · 13 Jul 2014

No, I scrolled through everything. These are all my main menu options.

DocBrown · 13 Jul 2014

Can we do screen shots of Integ. Periph.
PnP/PCI Conf
and the 1st one Stand. CMOS Features

Anshad Edavana · 13 Jul 2014

KM400-M2 is an old motherboard. I have seen old boards which are having difficulty to recognize new SATA 3GB/s or 6GB/s disks. They will recognize old 1.5 GB/s drives (SATA 1) happily. Since your HDD is a WD one, it may have an option to set the disk to SATA 1 compatibility mode.

An example :

In the above example, shorting pins 5 and 6 using a jumper will make the disk to enter in SATA 1 compatibility mode. Check if your HDD has a feature like that.