3010, 4 sata ports on MB, only 2 in Bios ?

You have to go into bios and enable the port.

You have to have POWER for the added drive and

Even then Raw Drives must be partitioned and formatted before you can "See" them.

MacOS or Windows 10 formatted drives will not be detected booting from windows 7.

Drives with rootkit malware will not mount.

The BLUE connector SATA 0 must be the boot hard drive. You have DVD on that port.

The Black Connector is SATA 1 With the ORANGE DVD cable

The WHITE connector is SATA 2 (3rd Drive)

The next Black is SATA 3

DRIVE 0 AND DRIVE 1

AHCI operation must be Enabled for the DVD to work and for any advanced format drives to be "SEEN"

Diskmgmt.msc may be required to be run as administrator to Assign a drive letter.  It is possible to mount 2X 2.5 inch drives where there is currently a single 3.5 inch drive.  HOWEVER there are not 4 power connections so you must have a Y cable for Sata Power and a working Sata Data cable.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this specific model.  Yours however may have physical damage.  Advanced Format Drives FORMATTED AHCI  Require F6 Drivers to "SEE" drives.  You have not said how the drives are formatted or what OS etc.  Too little information we are done. Raid Orom Must be enabled in Bios to do CTRL I to bring up the raid menu.

Hi !

As I said in my previous post, the drive I'm trying to add is properly powered, formatted and works perfectly if he's not on the third or four SATA slot on the motherboard. He will only be detected if alone or with just another one drive. Not in third position.

Hi speedstep and thanks for your replies.

The drive I try to connect has been formatted in NTFS on a Windows 7 from my other computer. There are no data on it. On the 3010, it's powered with a Y cable and a proper SATA data cable.

For SATA ports on my configuration :

SATA-0 is my SSD boot drive
SATA-1 is the optical drive
If I try to connect the new drive on the white SATA-2 or black SATA-3, it is not detected.
And I have no available controls for SATA-2 ou SATA-3 in bios at the "Drives" page, as you've seen in the example pic (the configuration shown in the pic is not mine, it's just an example to show you I only have SATA-0 and SATA-1 checkboxes, no SATA-2 or 3)

In the bios, at "SATA Operations", I have "AHCI" checked. You mentionned a "RAID OROM" option in bios but I have nothing related to this in my whole bios. I double checked to find this option, with no luck.

You have to format it on your computer not another.  The SATA mode you formatted the drive with is not compatible.  You cannot swap drives from one to another to another.

CHIPSET must match EXACTLY and F6 drivers are not optional.

You also do not have extra power connectors.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016P48DTO

The picture you posted clearly has DVD on SATA 0.

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@talion78 wrote:

 

I own a Dell Optiplex 3010 DT.

In the bios, there are controls on only 2 SATA ports (SATA-0 and SATA-1)

where are SATA-2 and SATA-3 ?) like in this pic :

 

How come do I have 4 SATA ports on the motherboard, an Intel H61 Express chipset which perfectly handles 4 SATA ports, and only 2 available in bios ??

 

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https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/optiplex-3010/manuals

My guess is it is a hardware or BIOS limitation. After all, it is a smaller slightly-limited "Desktop" model.

Although, the manual says:

Drives Allows you to enable or disable the various drives on-board:
• SATA-0
• SATA-1
• SATA-2
• SATA-3

Then, it says:

Serial ATA
Mini-Tower,Desktop: four 7-pin connectors
Small Form Factor: two 7-pin connectors

Are you sure this is a Desktop model and not a SFF model?

Are you running the latest BIOS?

Yes, I'm 100% sure it's a DT. The main difference between SFF and DT is that DT has 4 SATA connectors on the motherboard, and SFF has only two. My 3010 has 4 : 1 blue, 2 blacks, 1 white.

The Dell user's manual is quite confusing as it mentions that DT, MT and SFF all have 4 SATA interfaces available, which is wrong. SFF only has 2 on motherboard. This is clearly shown in the technical guidebook:

Desktop version (mine):

SFF version :

 I'm clearly not running the latest bios, but before I try to update it, I'm trying to confirm that updating it will solve that, or if it's a hardware limitation. Bios flashing is a risky operation and I wouldn't want to do it for no result at all.

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@talion78 wrote:

1. Yes, I'm 100% sure it's a DT.

2. I'm trying to confirm that updating it will solve that, or if it's a hardware limitation. 

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1. OK, if you say so.

2. I'm not sure where you are expecting this confirmation to come from, but hopefully it arrives. :Smile:

Because of:

In the bios, there are controls on only 2 SATA ports (SATA-0 and SATA-1)

And your hesitation to update the BIOS (yes, I know it's risky ... I've written about it many times).

Then, I think your options are:

a. Disconnect Optical Drive (who really uses these now-days) to free up a SATA port
b. Install least used or slowest device in powered USB-Enclosure (preferably USB-v3.0)

Thanks for your answer Tesla.

I'll stick with this solution. I already disconnected the optical drive and connected a SSD i had in my stash. I now have 2 little SSDs on the 2 available SATA ports.

If I need to expand my storage, I'll keep the USB3 solution for a HDD.

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@talion78 wrote:

Thanks for your answer Tesla.

I'll stick with this solution. I already disconnected the optical drive and connected a SSD i had in my stash. I now have 2 little SSDs on the 2 available SATA ports.

If I need to expand my storage, I'll keep the USB3 solution for a HDD.

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Sure thing.

You can also buy or make an external DVD-ROM. They also make these cheap $20 USB-to-SATA interfaces for testing HDD out on your desk. That would also work to get a DVD-ROM program installed real quick (or converted to a flash-drive).

Well, this is getting more & more weird.

I'm yet on another Optiplex 3010, DT too (meaning, exactly the same model i was referring to in my first post) and this one has 4 SATA ports on the motherboard too.

BUT, this one has 4 SATA ports available in the Bios. Yes, the four SATA ports do appear in the Bios, and 3 of them are in use (2 HDDs and 1 optical drive).

SATA-0 (Blue) : System HDD drive -> red SATA cable
SATA-1 (Black) : Optical drive -> orange SATA cable
SATA-2 (White) : Empty
SATA-3 (Black) : Secondary HDD drive -> blue SATA cable

Bios versions are the same, motherboards are the same. I just don't get it.

I had the same problem with a "liberated" Optiplex 3010 DT, which I recently moved from one aftermarket NAS case to another. It turns out that SATA-2 and SATA-3 are visible in the BIOS if and only if the original machine's front panel is attached (the usb / audio out / drive lights unit). Totally bizarre, but I guess this unit actually provides information to the BIOS about the identity of the machine. Hopefully you still have one around.

Blue is Sata 0

White is Sata 1

the next 2 are Sata 3 and 4

Did you try enabling all sata ports and restarting to see if any "show up"

I had the same Problem. It turns out, that SATA 2 and 3 are wired with the 1x PCI-E Slots. As I took out all PCI-E 1x Cards in those Slots, SATA 2 and 3 came back to work.

the H61 has shared ports, so... first  is this chip limit and then how Dell wired it up.. (then BIOS limits)

and for sure the person telling the front panel rule.  (love it) So now you learned that what?< the PC's that share same mobo(models) or same bios, will use the front panel as AND PRIME Identification DEVICE.,

Next time keep the panel there, plugged in . (on FrankenDELL PCs , missing major Dell parts)

and NOTE,  the lack of  RTS on this chip.