Is it a sataII drive on a Sata I controller? If so you'll need to apply the appropriate jumper settings.
Thank you for your reply.
I don't think it is a physical problem here, it's a laptop HD, and I have been able to detect it using the F6 driver load, and with OEMPREINSTALL turned off. The HD itself is fine.
Yep, had this issue with some Dell Latitudes recently - if you can, flip the SATA controller in the BIOS from AHCI to ATA mode.
Will give that a bash, thanks