New video card -- no SATA

[CodyH]

Hey guys, first timer on here. Normally I can figure this stuff out on my own but am too busy and a little stumped. I built my own pc a few years back. Specs: Asus P5Ne Intel Duo Core2 3.0 and 4gb OCZ Platinum RAM with an Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS OC PCIe. Now, I have 4 hdds, 2 which are IDE and the other two are SATA along with my DVD/CD-Rom. I recently upgraded my video card to a Zotac GeForce GTX 660 2GB PCIe and when I booted up my system none of my hard drives other than the IDE's showed up. I checked my wiring to ensure that all cables were correctly plugged in, and they were. My next thought was my PSU? After going over a few "calculator" websites to determine how much wattage I required, 3 separate sites stated between 413w-430w. My PSU is 650w....so I'm lost. Any help guys/girls?

 

[Cinders]

Take the GTX660 back out/put the 7900 back in and see if the drives show back up again. If they do you either have a motherboard BIOS issue or a videocard BIOS issue.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I don't know if this is a solution but wonder what the results will be if you switched modes. I do know that in IDE mode there is a 4 drive limit. I don't know if this includes the sum of both IDE and SATA. You mentioned having 5 drives, 2 IDE and 3 SATA. If the combination of IDE and SATA drives exceeds the 4 drive limit, there could be repercussions of this type.

• Difference Between AHCI and IDE

Please note that when in a different mode other than Windows was installed for, Windows may not boot until the mode is set back. If you find you want to switch modes permanently, Windows will probably need to be re-installed.

 

[CodyH]

Alright so I replaced the old 7900 and still no sata...just showing the two IDE's. So if it is in fact my video cards bios, whats next? How can I fix it?

 

[CodyH]

cliffordcooley I did take that into consideration, but I have had this setup for some time now (years). Also, I tried removing one and then two of the HDD's to see if it released any power and helped the others to appear, assuming that maybe my new video card was drawing more power than I had available, but that wasn't the case.

 

[Cinders]

Hmmm, So something is covering up the sata drives in the BIOS. I'd start by unplugging all connected drives except for the sata hard drives and see if they reappear in the BIOS again. If they didn't reappear I'd disconnect all but one sata hard drive and try again. If that still didn't help, I'd unplug that sata drive and try the other sata drive, rebooting each time into the BIOS. While my computer was in this condition I wouldn't allow it to even try to boot into Windows, I'd make sure that the computer got no further than the BIOS. IF the sata drives reappeared in the BIOS then I'd shut the computer down and attach the sata optical drive and reboot into the BIOS again. I'd keep my fingers crossed that the sata hard drives would continue to appear as I added the sata optical drive & eventually the IDE components back into the computer. Sometimes low level errors cause your computer to do weird things. I've had broken optical drives coverup the existence of a hard drive. I'm thinking your sata optical drive may be broken and it may be covering your sata hard drives. Now, if you get to the point where the sata drives appear and you add a component and they disappear again, then the issue is with that component. IF none of that worked I'd go back into the BIOS and load FAIL SAFE defaults with none of the drives plugged in. Maybe you're just having a minor BIOS glitch.

So your Windows install is on your IDE drives?

 

[CodyH]

I'm just heading out now, but that sounds like I have a fun Saturday afternoon ahead of me! Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try them out tomorrow and report back with my findings! And yes, my Windows is installed on an IDE drive.

 

[misor]

Additionally, in the bios setting, try to see if the ide hdd with windows is still the primary boot drive.
sata cables are known to be "loose" so try to unplug and re-plug it.
also some power cables of your psu supplying your hdd may be dead.

 

[nissanman]

Try resetting the BIOS and see if that helps. Just pull the CMOS battery out for about 1 minute.

 

[CodyH]

So I didnt get around to anything until about 15 minutes ago. I followed Cinders advice to a point. I shut down my computer, including the small switch at the rear (probably didnt make a difference) just to remove all power. I unplugged just my SATA drives, and then assumed that my optical drive would be the least of my worries, so I plugged it in, and booted up. Voila! Drivers installed. I repeated that whole step and one by one my drives re-appeared! Thank you so much for the advice!

 

[Cinders]