cant see Hard drive to reformat

Faloma · 04-29-2006, 09:05 PM

I purchased my PC from Cyberpower and with that I got Windows xp Home. For some reason the only version that would allow me to reformat was the disk they gave me. When trying to reformat with another version of XP (xp pro sp2) I would get to the screen where you would delete partition but there would be nothing partitioned or unpartitioned to work with like I have a blank HDD. I then attempted to reformat on a friends PC and transfer to mine. The HDD working fine on his PC, but when putting it back in mine I had the same problems all over again. Now when I got to reformat I will get a message saying I don’t even have a HDD connected.

I have a MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R MS-6702 motherboard and a sata Maxtor 200GB HDD.

I have tried to get a hold of Cyberpower for help but they just tell me that I should just make a boot disk from my Motherboard drivers and update them or something like that. Misplaced all the drivers so I am unsure how to even go about what they are telling me.

Right now I am unsure where to start to any suggestions would be great.

geoffm · 04-30-2006, 02:27 AM

This sounds like a sata drive problem (the wins. disc does not carry sata drivers so windows can't see you're drive) at the begining of the boot from the wins disc it says at the bottem press f6 to load third party drivers which means sata as well as raid ect.The disc Cyberpower referred to should contain sata drivers from the m/board makers or the main chip makers ei. via,sis or itel ect.If you dont have the m/board disc go to the makers site and download the sata drivers and later during the loading of wins.disc it will tell you to load them after that it will see you're disc as normal ( if during the load up the m/c reboots and goes passed that F6 screen again you have to RELOAD the drivers again. !!!!
Regads geoffm

**hwm54112** · 04-30-2006, 11:40 PM

Get your mainboard drivers here msi.com.tw/program/support/driver

There are directions for creating a driver disk after you download the drivers you will need

Since you set up the drive successfully in your friends computer, the drive is good. On your computer, enter bios and make sure your computer sees the drive. If it is there and setup does not see the drive you can:

1) Try the maxtor setup utility available here
Maxtor Setup

If the Maxtor utility sees the drive, use it to partition and format. Then try setup again, remembering to install the sata drivers,when prompted, that are on the driver disk you already made from the msi link above.

2) If Bios sees the drive and Maxtor doesn't, use
Boot & Nuke to completely wipe the drive, then set it up using the maxtor utility and reun setup again.

Another possibility would be to set the drive up again in your friend's computer only this time, use the maxtor utility and not windows disk management as you could be having an issue with the wrong MBR being written to the drive.

04-29-2006, 09:05 PM	#1 (permalink)
Faloma Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 22 OS: XP Pro and Vista Ultimate	cant see Hard drive to reformat I purchased my PC from Cyberpower and with that I got Windows xp Home. For some reason the only version that would allow me to reformat was the disk they gave me. When trying to reformat with another version of XP (xp pro sp2) I would get to the screen where you would delete partition but there would be nothing partitioned or unpartitioned to work with like I have a blank HDD. I then attempted to reformat on a friends PC and transfer to mine. The HDD working fine on his PC, but when putting it back in mine I had the same problems all over again. Now when I got to reformat I will get a message saying I don’t even have a HDD connected. I have a MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R MS-6702 motherboard and a sata Maxtor 200GB HDD. I have tried to get a hold of Cyberpower for help but they just tell me that I should just make a boot disk from my Motherboard drivers and update them or something like that. Misplaced all the drivers so I am unsure how to even go about what they are telling me. Right now I am unsure where to start to any suggestions would be great.

04-30-2006, 02:27 AM	#2 (permalink)
geoffm Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 22 OS: win xp pro sp2	This sounds like a sata drive problem (the wins. disc does not carry sata drivers so windows can't see you're drive) at the begining of the boot from the wins disc it says at the bottem press f6 to load third party drivers which means sata as well as raid ect.The disc Cyberpower referred to should contain sata drivers from the m/board makers or the main chip makers ei. via,sis or itel ect.If you dont have the m/board disc go to the makers site and download the sata drivers and later during the loading of wins.disc it will tell you to load them after that it will see you're disc as normal ( if during the load up the m/c reboots and goes passed that F6 screen again you have to RELOAD the drivers again. !!!! Regads geoffm

04-30-2006, 11:40 PM	#3 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	Get your mainboard drivers here msi.com.tw/program/support/driver There are directions for creating a driver disk after you download the drivers you will need Since you set up the drive successfully in your friends computer, the drive is good. On your computer, enter bios and make sure your computer sees the drive. If it is there and setup does not see the drive you can: 1) Try the maxtor setup utility available here Maxtor Setup If the Maxtor utility sees the drive, use it to partition and format. Then try setup again, remembering to install the sata drivers,when prompted, that are on the driver disk you already made from the msi link above. 2) If Bios sees the drive and Maxtor doesn't, use Boot & Nuke to completely wipe the drive, then set it up using the maxtor utility and reun setup again. Another possibility would be to set the drive up again in your friend's computer only this time, use the maxtor utility and not windows disk management as you could be having an issue with the wrong MBR being written to the drive.