I have 30 gig wd 7200 hard drive that will auto detect in bios with the correct data. when attempting to fdisk. I will receive an message
"unable to detect drive"

any sugestions would be appreciated
thanks

Did you save settings when exiting BIOS?

Yes I did. Everything seems to working fine till I go to fdisk.
A little clicking sound and that message will appear

Sounds like the hard drive is sticking. You can try to shake it VERY gently to try to free it off but be very careful. I have heard people knocking them gently too and it working but not tried that drastic action yet!
If it is a new drive, i would'nt bother, send it back for replacing. If it is an old one then try the shaking trick. If it works, OK, if not bin it.

Do you hear the drive spinning? You can give it a shake or a tap, they are fairly robust, i dropped one a couple of weeks ago and it still works fine :) You can also try hanging it differently, whip it out of its bay and hang it free on its cable, or turn your case on its side. If the drive isnt spinning then obviously it has a problem!