Sorry for the long wait for a reply. My new position at work makes it very difficult to work an my computer during the week. However I was able to open her up this morning.
I tried switching the ports around, there are only two on the motherboard and I can't see either of them in the bios.
See, some time ago (year maybe) my wife, following my instructions, installed an automatic windows security update. Seemed harmless enough at the time. However, when she restarted the computer the system didn't find the hard drive. The only thing I can summerize is that somehow the update erased the SATA driver.
I had a spare IDE drive laying around the house so I was able to fix the problem by simply installing it and reinstalling windows, using the 3rd-party raid disc windows asked for. At least the computer will still work regardless of if it can see these drives. However, I get the feeling something similar has happened this time because whenever I start my computer I get the following message.
"VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT8237 Serial ATA RAID BIOS utility v2.01 Copyright (c) VIA Technologies Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Scan Devices, Please Wait...
Press <TAB> key into user window.
Hardware Initiate Failed, Please check device!!!
The BIOS does not be installed. Press <g> to continue."
Now I know the first part is just legal mumbo-jumbo, but the rest, I know enough to know, means that there is a problem and it looks to be with the bios. Problem is, I've no idea how to fix it. Any suggestions and a well written tutorial would be greatly appreciated.