Gigabyte mother board issue

[frank_cadam@hot]

I have a Gigabyte motherboard GA-7DPXDWP and am expereinceing a problem where the bios does not pick up the hard drive, I have tried it as Master/Slave and cable select. At first I taught it was the new hard drive, but I tried two others and the same problem.

What I have found is that a harddrive with an O/S instaled will boot, but it does not show up in the BIOS. If I try to boot with a new hard drive I get error "ntloader" not present.

I have tried flashing the bios to no joy.

Can some one shed some light on this.

 

[IronDuke]

Have you tried a different ribbon and/or the other IDE port on the motherboard?

 

[frank_cadam@hot]

Have tried differnt ribbon, put not different IDE port.

 

[Grok451]

Have you selected the option in the BIOS to auto detect the drive?

 

[frank_cadam@hot]

Yes - checked the BIOS and the hard drive is set to auto detect.

 

[Grok451]

Sorry if I'm not understanding . . .

So you're saying that in the BIOS setup it shows auto-detect for the drive, but doesn't display anything else about the drive? Normally, if the BIOS doesn't "see" the drive, I didn't think you'd be able to boot from it. I've had the occasion to see auto detect in the BIOS setup, but had to select some action to actually have the BIOS detect and report back info about the drive. You might want to look over your BIOS setup options.

During the boot process and before windows loads,what bios messages are you getting? Are you saying you don't get the messages that identifies your drive(s)?

Also, it would be normal for the other hard disk to not boot, since it is new.

 

[frank_cadam@hot]

Many thanks for your notes, the problem is IDE 1and2 will not pick up the drive in the bios. When I move the cable to IDE 3and4 it shows the details.

Do you know any reason for two ide channells to fail.

 

[IronDuke]

It would be worth re-installing, even updating while you're at it, your motherboard chipset drivers in case they have been corrupted.

 

[Grok451]

Do you know any reason for two ide channells to fail.

I'm not really a hardware guy, but it things just break. :dead: I've had motherboard failures (won't post) due to capacitors appearing to have "blown" (bulging at the tops), etc. So, unfortunately, you may have to replace your mobo - I don't know that you can just fix the IDE channels.

 

[IronDuke]

I don't think you can repair the IDE channels if they're tucked. You can get an add-on card if you have a free PCI slot, it should be cheaper than a new Motherboard. Possibly not a lot and so you may wish to consider an upgrade, but we know where that can lead. You could find the fluff at the bottom of your pocket.