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I have a GA-MA78GM-S2H (rev.1.0) mobo, AMD x2 5200+, 4GB of ADATA PC6400 DDR2, a SATA HDD, IDE DVD-RW drive and a 600 watt psu.

I believe I have everything connected correctly.

I actually have 2 problems going.

First, I was prompted during the first time I booted that the SATA HDD was found running in IDE mode and asked to switch to SATA/AHCI mode. I switched without realizing that XP doesn't have the SATA drivers and that it couldn't recognize the HDD. So, I tried entereing BIOS set-up to try to switch back (after reading about more this, I'm not sure that I can switch it there) - which brings me to my other, and more immediate problem.

I cannot access BIOS Set-up. When I press Delete during boot it tries to enter set-up but the screen turns to a fuzzy scrambled greenish/blackish screen. Any ideas on what is causing this?

I've contacted Gigabyte but that might take a while to get a response. I considered trying to flash the bios using their utility but I believe you have to use the BIOS set-up menu to do that(?).

Also, now the AHCI controller says that it can't detect device (hdd) either during boot. If I don't try to enter BIOS set-up it says boot failure, enter boot disk. I put in the XP disc and discovered the problem with the HDD not being recognized.

Anyway, sorry to ramble - I guess I'm more concerned with the BIOS menu at this point. I'd appreciate ANY help. Thanks!

open the case unplug pc and remove cmos battery for a minute. Replace battery and boot. There is no reason a sata hdd should have to run im ACHI mode unless your using a hot swap array

Thanks! I removed/replaced the cmos battery and was able to get into Bios menu. I was able to confirm that defaults were restored but my HDD is still not showing up. I still think I might have a bad mobo because it still froze a couple times and I had to reboot/replace the cmos battery a few times and even after seeing the bios menu it did the thing again where it went to fuzzy screen. However, this time I restored defaults from memory (f6, y, enter) and the menu was then visible. I confirmed that all SATA ports are now being controlled as IDE and the last time I rebooted it asked me again about switching modes and I chose to leave it in IDE mode.

Then I got all the way to the windows installation again and of course it did not find the hdd. This didn't surprise me because I didn't see it in the bios peripherals menu. I guess I just need to make sure my hdd is connected properly. Right now, it's connected to SATA port 0. I wonder if my dvd drive being connected to the primary ide as master could be screwing with things.

Any other help on sorting out the hdd connection would be very much appreciated.

Thanks again for advising me on the battery - at least now I can get to the bios menu.