Problems with PC Build

Hi guys, as you may know I've bought my PC parts recently and started building them together. I'm on the last few parts now (graphics card, PSU, optical drive) and have encountered a problem. The PC boots fine but there is no display, so I can't see the screen picture or whatever.

Is this because the Graphics Card is brand new, and that the Hard Drive is also brand new. I'm not that wised up but I thought it would surely be able to get to the BIOS even though there is no operating system on the Hard Drive. I just can't understand how there is no display when I've put the graphics card in the proper place and what not!

Any help pleaaaaase! Thanks!

Well I guessed it was a fine boot by it not making any horrible noises, but I'm probably wrong there!

It is a completely new build. Apart from the guy having sorted the motherboard and processor into the case, the rest of the parts are new.

The graphics card has two power ports, I have power into both of them, but one of them is from the hard drive. That sounds strange but I can't get it to power up If I hook the power cable for the Hard Drive to go to the PSU ports. I've definitely plugged in both motherboard cables.

Hi guys, I followed what hiigran said about the graphics card and it's two ports. I hooked up two power cables into there and the PSU, and then put the Hard Drive power cable into the PSU also. This has worked! However, there is bad news to come...

Although in the BIOS the Hard Drive is detected (in SATA 1 out of 6), when it comes to booting, it doesn't detect a Hard-Drive.

I come to this error ' Adapater 1: Disk Information. No Hard Drive detected!'

Then it will go to a screen saying:

Reboot and Select proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key'.

I'm really clueless as to what to do! I've checked the Priority and it is set to Hard-Drive as the number one priority followed by the Optical Drive and then a Removeable device. Any help?!

Yeah I've changed the priority but it still doesn't seem to want to know. I'm beginning to think it might be something to do with the Optical Drive being IDE and the Hard Drive being SATA? Although from what I've read both of these can work together.

The Hard Drive is Sata benedict, it's the Optical Drive that's IDE.

I've tried moving the SATA cable into other SATA ports but that hasn't worked (only tried 1 and 2, there is 6 ports). I'm just confused as to how it knows it's there on the BIOS, but in the Boot it doesn't.

Also, further info: When that error comes up (it only stays on screen for like half a second) it mentions something about a Marvell Adapter. Don't know if that helps but thought I'd mention it!

Nope I haven't installed the OS, because I've been trying to install it, but can't get to that stage because it won't boot from the CD Drive (to get to the set-up). Ah yeah, I'll disconnect both drives (Optical and Hard) now. Just to let you know (as Benedict said both hard drives) it is only one Hard Drive, which is a SATA Samsung F3 1TB hard drive, and the optical drive I have is an IDE Samsung 22x DVD RW+.

Try this.

Make sure all hard drives and optical drives are installed (power cable + Data cable) and then turn system on and enter the BIOS. From there set the boot priority to boot the optical drive first. Save that setting in the BIOS and then restart. Have the Windows installation disc in the optical drive and after it boots you should see an option to hit any key to boot from the drive. Hit any key and it should load into the Windows installation. From there follow the steps of the installation process.

Also, that no HDD found screen is just stating that no hard drives are installed through the Marvell adapter on you motherboard. Companies add these adapters to give the user more on-board SATA ports than are supported by the chipset.