Adaptec ASR-51645 RAID Controller not recognising any drives.

[kammerjaegeroftheinternet]

I got an old Server for Cheap and am now trying to get the included
Adaptec ASR-51645 RAID Controller to recognize drives.
I won't recognize the drives that came with the Server (Fujitsu MBA3147RC)
or the WD Red 3TB I intend to use with the server.
The WD Red 3TB Drives are usable when plugged directly into the motherboard,
the Fujitsu MBA3147RC are not showing up when plugged directly into the motherboard.
The Adaptec BIOS based configuration utility works fine but no drives are showing up.

Is there any way to find out if the Controller is bad?
Is there anything the previous Owner could have done to make the Fujitsu Drives not show up
even when plugged directly into the motherboard?

 

[JaredDM]

As to the Fujitsu drives not being detected by the motherboard, that's an obvious one. That model is an SAS drive, so your motherboard can't communicate with it. Just because SATA and SAS have adapters doesn't mean they work together. SAS speaks SCSI language while SATA uses ATA. An SAS controller card can work with both SAS and SATA drives, but a SATA controller (what your motherboard has) can't work with an SAS drive.

As to the controller being dead, I can't really help you there. If it won't detect known good drives, I'd suspect there's a problem.