actually, i found out what the problem is. there are two ide chipsets on the mobo, the onboard, and the highpoint. my hdd is hooked up to the highpoint. but, with the connectors on the onboard ide's, they are not missing that one pin. meaning all 80 pins are there, when there should only be 79. look closely at your mobo, they are missing one pin...
Some of the "older" motherboards BIOS's cannot see HDs that are 30 or 40 gig and larger in size. I had a BX based board at work that could see 20 gigers, but not 30's or larger in size.