MoBo not reading HDD

Terry

My friend can't get his desktop running because te motherboard isn't picking up and hard drives.
I tried one of them in my own pc, and it worked fine.

He told me that he read up on it, and that the problem seems to be the SATA ports.
He's tried all 6, and with different cables, but still hasn't had any luck.
USB drives are showing up in the BIOS.

Any ideas before he has to buy another motherboard?

smuggler.ie

Providing SATA data cables where tested "good" and drives read on other system i can only see two possible steps:


1. Guessing he is connecting power cable to the drive. Test power supply unit provides power to drive(s) (rail could be gone) - is CD/DVD drive recognized(if any).
Does disk (if HDD) spin-up on power-on (you would get some noise and vibration)?

2. Try update BIOS(least likely to help)


Cant think of any other.

Johnboy1951

I am uncertain if the problem comes before the operating system boots or after.
Does the motherboard have a BIOS or EFI firmware?
Has he reset the defaults there? Changed the tpe of drive it expects to be present?

Has he tried a different operating system ...... such as a LiveUSB or LiveDVD of a Linux distro?
If yes was that able to see the HDD?

smuggler.ie

Terry wrote: »

My friend can't get his desktop running.................

This suggest issue prior OS

Skerries

has he tried to change the SATA setting in the BIOS as that can make a difference

Terry

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Providing SATA data cables where tested "good" and drives read on other system i can only see two possible steps:


1. Guessing he is connecting power cable to the drive. Test power supply unit provides power to drive(s) (rail could be gone) - is CD/DVD drive recognized(if any).
Does disk (if HDD) spin-up on power-on (you would get some noise and vibration)?

2. Try update BIOS(least likely to help)


Cant think of any other.

BIOS is the latest, and the DVD drive did read when it was connected.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I am uncertain if the problem comes before the operating system boots or after.
Does the motherboard have a BIOS or EFI firmware?
Has he reset the defaults there? Changed the tpe of drive it expects to be present?

Has he tried a different operating system ...... such as a LiveUSB or LiveDVD of a Linux distro?
If yes was that able to see the HDD?

I think it may have dual BIOS and EFI, but I'm not entirely sure. If not, it's BIOS.
Sorting a LiveUSB for it now.
All the defaults have been reset through F9.

Skerries wrote: »

has he tried to change the SATA setting in the BIOS as that can make a difference

I'll try that when I go over.

Thanks, folks.

Terry

Tried Ubuntu on a USB. He had been using an SSD, so I put in a SATA HDD. There's power going to it, but it's still not showing up.

smuggler.ie

Terry wrote: »

.................and the DVD drive did read when it was connected.............

Double check if can. Providing it was SATA DVD drive this indicate SATA controller on the board is working.


If it was IDE(flat ribbon cable+4pin molex power) it would be irrelevant.


Some BIOS/UEFI have SATA ports disabled check if available option to toggle


Share MoBo model if known.


Is it new build, was it working before?

Terry

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Double check if can. Providing it was SATA DVD drive this indicate SATA controller on the board is working.


If it was IDE(flat ribbon cable+4pin molex power) it would be irrelevant.


Some BIOS/UEFI have SATA ports disabled check if available option to toggle


Share MoBo model if known.


Is it new build, was it working before?

I'll have to look at it tomorrow, but it's not a new build.
The DVD drive is SATA.

This is the model: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A78LTM/

smuggler.ie

Refer to manual if available.


For lack of it download and see :

Version E50322009/12/11 update 3.26 MB M4A78LT-M LE user’s manual (English)




There apparently are option to disable SATA's(as well as miss-configure)

ED E

Terry wrote: »

Any ideas before he has to buy another motherboard?

Its a decade old.

BUY A NEW SYSTEM.


But, I'd guess you're using like 3TB or more disks? If so old boards cant support the large LBA count and will just reject them.