Recently i bought a new SATA harddrive to compliment by two main IDE drives. Initially i had no problem but just in the last week or so i've had two problems, or rather the same problem twice Twice i have rebooted my machine (the first time i'm not sure why but the second time because a program locked up) and when it reboots, nothing happens. It starts to boot, it detects motherboard and so on then it just goes to a black screen Eventually i checked bios and low and behold its not detecting ANY SATA drives (thus why it won't boot because windows is on my first IDE drive. In the main menus of the bios is just has; System Time System Date Legacy Diskette A (1.44M, 3.5 in) SATA 1 [WDC WD3200AAKS-00B] SATA 2 [Not Detected] SATA 3 [LITE-ON DVDRW LH-2] SATA 4 [Not Detected] So its obvious WHY its not booting (its not detecting the two IDE drives, just the SATA drive and the DVD burner) and, funnily enough i DID manage to fix it last time by switching it back to IDE and booting as per normal.. I just can't figure out how i did it - and more importantly, why it keeps happening and what i can do to stop it.

Sorry, its 3am and there is a mistake in the first few lines, it should read "Eventually i checked bios and low and behold its not detecting ANY *IDE* drives (thus why it won't boot because windows is on my first IDE drive." Sorry about that

I thought i'd add a little information. If i go into the boot section of the bios, i can SEE the other drives there. I can see it when the machine boots too (it shows up with the two IDE drives) If i navigate to the Boot Device Priority, i can SEE the IDE drive "IDE: WDC WD800JB-00" (but, notably ONLY that drive) If i go to Hard Disk Drives in the Boot section i can see FOUR drives "IDE: WDC WD800JB-00" (this is my main drive, with windows) "IDE: WDC WD2000JB-0" (this is my second IDE drive with most of my 'stuff') "HDD: PM-WDC WD3200A" (this, i think, is the SATA drive, since its the largest of the normal drives and not noted as IDE) "USB: WD 7500AAK ExT" (this would have to be my external drive) So the machine obvious SEES the IDE drives, it knows they are there, it just won't BOOT to them and i assume this is because in the main area its just showing SATA and nothing to do with IDE, but i don't know how to fix that

Aximus First off you can edit any of your posts here, except for the first one in a thread your started. So you could edit and add to your second or now third post. Now to your problem. You may need to Enable the IDE controllers in the BIOS and then set the boot order to boot to IDE first. If that isn't the problem then you may need to change the jumpers on the IDE devices. BIOSes for both SATA and IDE have an extra selector. You will need to find exactly where it is in your BIOS as all are slightly different. It will be there though.

Sorry about that. i've looked all through the bios and though i can find the boot order, its right (it boots from the IDE then DVD then Floppy) and i cannot find anywhere to enable - or disable - IDE controllers, any idea what it might look like?

Before worrying about that did you check the jumpers on whatever IDE drives you have? What do you have that is IDE ATA/ATAPI? Describe how you have the drive/s connected and how the jumpers on each are set. The page could be labeled Advanced BIOS settings> Hard disk Boot Priority. Integrated peripherals> IDE function setup.