Area 51-R1, what can I do to fix my computer?

Aliens Eimy Kevin & Porras ... all three passed over the chance today to help fix the best product they ever made ... how typical ...

I can't say I've had your issue before, I suppose there are several ways to tackle this, & I do not know the state of you computer before the original drive spazzed out - or perhaps the system was 'bumped', a cable was loose & you've re-entered a new drive into system that was in a state of disrepair prior

Let's try this: you've six hard disk bays, do all six fail to register the drive in the Bios? If so:

• without any drives attached, except youir CD/DVD drive, boot up, hit F2, is CD/DVD listed?
• if so, power down by holding top power on/off button down
• (pull rear cord from pc if it helps keep system from restarting / then reattach cord)
• remove a DVD blank & insert hard disk into blank (secure it with a screw if you prefer)
• back the SATA data + power cord from your CD/DVD drive
• attach SATA data + power cords to your drive & press power on
• tap F2 to enter Bios

enter Standard: is hard disk listed under SATA 7 or SATA 8?

if not, you have a certain problem. The original test is to register the cd/dvd drive in the Bios, thereby affirming the SATA cables & onboard SATA controller 'work'. To re-use the CD/DVD cords & not have your drive register ... I would retry the original drive as well, to see if it registers or not. Find a drive that will register ...

• if your CD/DVD registers but your drive will not - when using those same cords - suspect a bad drive again --> possily
• if your CD/DVD drive did not register either of course, let me know that

moving on with a working drive in a working system

with my drive attached to (CD/DVD) SATA cords, I can next go to Boot Config & see the drive

Integrated Devices menu, SATA set to AHCI, JMicron enabled

F10, reboot, my hard disk boots up from my CD/DVD cords

We have 8 SATA ports on the mthrbrd, the top two are for CD/DVD & non-boot drives because they are slower ports, but as u can see I am able to boot from it just the same. Normally I would use my six hard disk bays as you do

I now give power to my CD/DVD drive, I click down my daily use drive in the drive bay & boot up

Drive bay is #6 DVD #7 Test Drive #8 as before

If your drive will not register using this method, I would reseat ALL 8 SATA cables at the far right of the mthrbrd & retest ... I would pull the 66pin black modular bulk connector from the power supply & reseat it as well, perhaps pull the 8pin CPU & 24pin ATX & reseat them as well & retest.

Let us pretend the moment comes & you can get a drive to register in SATA position 7/8 from the DVD area as I've shown: I would unplug the SATA data cord from either of the top two ports, unplug any of the SATA data cords from one of the six power ports, plug in, see if my drive registered in SATA 1-6. If so, put your cords back the way they were & now try to register it in the Bios from one of your six hard drive bays. If now none of the six register the drive in the Bios I would suspect a wiring issue in your drive bays, simply because your test showed the CD/DVD data + power cords did register it.

You would then find out why your wiring was at fault, & in the interim, get your life in order by using the DVD tray & the trick above, knowing that your drive's SATA data cord should be installed into one of the lower six SATA ports as you go about reinstalling Windows from your DVD/USB as I assume you're trying to get the chance to do that, given the possibly failed prior drive.

Whether I recommend to you or anyone else reading, that since you have six hard disk bays & room for a 7th in the DVD tray, invest in multiple drives in order to clone / image to, that way your OS & data aren't tied to just a single drive that incurs a lengthy OS reinstall & substantial down time etc

I went into PSA and found zero issues

do you know how to do the same with an alianware x51 R2?