SATA drive not detected in BIOS after power outage during XP install

[JustinM]

Okay, longest thread title ever.

As it says, I was installing Windows XP on a completely new build -- my first -- when the power went out. The power failed while the hard drive was being partitioned for the first time. Now, when I boot the PC, it fails to detect that hard drive at all. The BIOS shows it as a blank SATA port. I swapped cables, and still no go.

The HD is a Western Digital 320GB, and the mobo is an ASUS M2A-VM.

New harddrive time?

[pam123]

Unfortunately yes.

[glc]

Before condemning the hard drive, try a different SATA port - it's possible the surge blew the port. If that happened, it's motherboard time.