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54249
June 11th, 2015 20:00
SATA port function
I'd like to open with the statement, I'm not a computer expert. I recently retired and with time on my hands have been able to resurrect several "dead" Dell PCs. A Dell Precision T3500 with a 6 core XEON CPU, Dell XPS 8300 are two of the PCs which I've been able to bring back from the "dead".
I'm building a Dell OptiPlex 990 Mini-Tower for use as a HTPC; using parts I have on hand. Thus far I've loaded Windows 7 Ultimate into an Intel 80GIG SSD, updated all drivers and am using legacy boot. The machine boots to desk top in less than 30 seconds.
My problem is this; the motherboard has four SATA ports. Two which are black in color; another pair which are a white color. The first pair of SATA ports are being used for the SSD and the optical drive. I'm unable to make the PC recognize any HDD which has been attached to either of the white SATA ports. What am I doing wrong. The drive I want to use is a Western Digital 1 TB 2.5" hybrid slim. How do I "activate" the two white color SATA ports?
Thoughts, questions, solutions anyone?
Dr. Bill
DELL-Colin Hu
351 Posts
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June 12th, 2015 06:00
Hi painhead69,
The SATA ports may be disabled in the BIOS, so I'd go into the BIOS (F2 on startup at the Dell logo) and look under System Configuration---Drives--- Check SATA 2/3 are enabled. If they aren't then enable them and test the drive.
If they are enabled already then with the system turned off, plug in the drives, power on and go into the BIOS and click on the "Load Defaults" button. This will clear all the settings back to default and the system will also recognise all the devices attached to Motherboard - the 2 SATA drives potentially. Also it may be an idea to update the BIOS to the latest version ( if you've not done that already).
If the drive is still not recognised; Does it work in SATA 0/1 and does the SSD or Optical Drive work in SATA 2/3 as it could be that the ports are just faulty unfortunately.
Let me know how you get on
painhead69
8 Posts
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June 12th, 2015 15:00
Howdy Colin,
First, thanks for the quick reply!
Last of your questions first. Yes, the drives function everywhere else.
I want to update the BIOS. However, the instructions(from the Dell Support page) have me downloading the new BIOS, then loading it into a flash drive which has been formatted as a DOS boot drive and booting the computer from the flash drive. No problems with any of those procedures. However, Dell's instructions want me to run a checksum value test to ensure the BIOS data wasn't/isn't corrupt. That's a job which has me befuddled.
Thoughts?
Bill painhead69
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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June 12th, 2015 17:00
Assuming the right SATA ports are enabled in BIOS setup, it could just be that you need to put the second hard drive "ahead" of the optical drive. So try connecting them this way:
SATA0 - boot drive (black)
SATA1 - second hard drive (black)
SATA2 - optical drive (white)
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
1
June 13th, 2015 06:00
Blue wires are Hard Drives. Orange wires are Optical Drives. Its VERY Picky about the boot drive being on the blue connector with a Blue wire.
DELL-Colin Hu
351 Posts
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June 15th, 2015 07:00
When you download the file, save it to your desktop then:
Double click the BIOS saved file on your desktop, the BIOS window will popup
Click the continue button (there will be a message: "Pressing OK will close all applications, shut down Windows, Flash the BIOS, then reboot")
Click the OK button.
The system will restart and the BIOS will be applied and then will load back up to the desktop.