Dell Tower 5820 - Additional SATA SSD not recognized

Question

Hi all,

A month ago our new Dell Tower 5820 arrived. Here's the link to the configuration:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/desktops-all-in-one-pcs/precision-5820-tower/spd/precision-5820-workstation/xctopt5820dswsus?configurationid=3798e137-7bb0-403d-85e6-3e01e930f047#techspecs_section

In our build we only added one hard drive (M.2 256GB PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive).

We ordered an additional new SATA SSD (2.5" - 4TB). The instructions for plugging the SSD into the Flexbay were followed. It was plugged into the left top slot, the existing M.2 was in the top right slot. When powering up the workstation, the status LED on the hard drive carrier (the heartbeat icon) is flashing amber (status: drive has failed). In the BIOS the SSD is not showing too.

Could anybody help us in figuring this out or have an idea what might be wrong?

PS. The OS that is used is Ubuntu 20.04.

Kind regards,

Michiel

mazzinia_ · Accepted Answer

The led will not light up.

you will see the drive in whatever tool used to initialize it. but you will not see the green light nor the heartbeat light on the sata bays.

The 2 leds on the caddy, in the sata bays, will only light up if using software raid in windows, for all I know.

Once the drive is initialized, will cause the small white led just under the power button, to blink ( on access )

michielva · Answer

Dear mazzinia,

Thanks for the reply!
I did try this already, but the SSD did not receive power (no LEDs were lighting up).

Is it possible that these slots (2nd row from the top) are not connected internally by default?

Kind regards,

Michiel

mazzinia_ · Answer

Hello,

use one of the other 2 slots in the row under.

The slot near the M.2 is only for another M.2 unit ( with an appropriate adapter ) or an U.2 enterprise unit ( without adapters, it plugs directly ).

Bottom line , the bay next to the M.2 is not sas/sata anymore.

michielva · Answer

Thanks for the advice, I will try your solution on Thursday.

speedstep · Answer

U2 drives are SFF-8639 SAS not Sata.

OccuLink to miniSAS HD x4 cables to connect to motherboard

OCuLink SFF-8611 (x4) to MiniSAS HD SFF-8643

The system contains multiple locations to support traditional SATA/SAS HDD/SSD's and the latest models of NVMe SSDs.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000146243/

michielva · Answer

Thanks, installing the SSD in the 2nd row solved my issues.

mazzinia_ · Answer

Glad to hear it

Andy812 · Answer

I had a problem with M.2. SSD not recognized in nvme mode because it had legacy (win7) zero-sector data (our admin's work).

DELL's support suggested zero-erasing the disk (at least the zero-sector), or formatting it with win10 fdisk in recovery mode. It worked like a charm.

DButch2022 · Answer

I just got a Precision 5820 with Flex-Bay that arrived last Sunday. Initial setup on Sunday afternoon and Monday went smoothly after a bit of mysterious bluetooth linking of mouse and keyboards was cleaned up. Today I started working on transferring old but still good 6 Gbps Sata drives from my old machine to the new machine. I got both drives installed in the mostly plastic carriers - which came configured to fit 2.5" drives. Getting the spacer out was a bit scary, as was getting the drives in. It required some scary levels of force and flexing to get them in the carrier pins.

I put the drives in one at a time. First had problems - upper left slot - I just read the comment here about both upper slots being NVME only. But while both drives worked the first time I plugged them into the lower slots, they suddenly stopped working. I put them back in my old computer, and they work fine. I want to use these as RAID 1 (in Windows SW (didn't plunk for SATA RAID). But now after a momentary bow, they no longer show up in either of the two lower bays, but still work in my older computer. Thoughts?

mazzinia_ · Answer

Do they show in the bios ? Or in the test area , aka F12 at boot ?

Mohd-farag · Answer

Hi, good day. I hope this email finds you well. I'm using DELL Precision 7920 and DELL Precision 8520, and all my drives have two SDDs. m.2, one for the system and the other for space with HDD. I'm facing an issue with the second SDD, it always doesn't appear and show message "access is denied" . I checked in BIOS and changed the SATA configuration and also downloaded all drivers for SDD, and I'm still facing the issue.

Thanks.

JOHNESTOCK · Answer

Got one of these 5820’s 'wiped' from work (for free), installed a new gaming graphics card (RTX-2080) and PCIe WiFi/Bluetooth card. It came with JUST a 500gb PCIe boot in the drive bay (boots fine)… but I cannot get it to recognize any SATA drives in any of the bays. Are the SATA connectors for ALL of the bays connected to the motherboard in some way by default? I see all the SATA sockets on the motherboard but only two are connected. Any help would be appreciated here…

JOHNESTOCK · Answer

@mazzinia_​ Thank you for this—do you know if all the bays are connected to the motherboard by default? Is there any SATA wiring that needs to be done to light up a drive bay?

mazzinia_ · Answer

@JOHNESTOCK​ the 4 3.5' bays are all already cabled, that I know of ( either as 4 x sata or 2 x nvme + 2 x sata ). The 5.25' bay has the cables hidden under the psu area (now I don't remember if both power and sata or just power and you have to add a standard sata). The optical dvd slim slot should have the cabling behind the dummy plate

mazzinia_ · Answer

@JOHNESTOCK​ you should have in order from left to rightsata0 sata1 sata2 sata3 sata4 sata5  odd0 odd1.  With 2 bays converted for nvme/u.2 (bay 0 and 1 ) , you should have sata0/sata1 plugged ( for bay 2 and 3 ) and the odd cables for future upgrades (not sure if these 2 are optional as cables) ( adding something in the 5.25' and slice dvd bay ) If nothing is present in sata0 to sata5 , means there was a raid card installed. The cable from bay2/3 should be hidden under the black plastic removable part meant to help sustain the weight in case of very long pcie cards. The cable has 2 plugs, and the cables from the motherboard get plugged there. In case of a raid controller, the controller cable goes to those plugs instead

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Dell Tower 5820 - Additional SATA SSD not recognized

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