Adding Second SSD to PC, Recognized in BIOS and Works if Plugged into SATA ports 0, 1, or 2, Otherwise Doesn't Appear

[amw297]

I ordered a second Samsung 850 Evo 250 to add some more SSD space. My OS boots from the first one and I have 2 1TB HDD also setup which currently occupy ports 0 1 and 2. When I plugged in the second SSD to SATA port 4 and even 3 it wouldn't appear in Disk Management but when I plugged it into one of the ports already in use and plugged that drive into port 3/4 then the new drive was available but the old drive disappeared. However, it does appear in my BIOS, I even moved it to be the first drive to boot after Windows boots up. My motherboard is a Gigabyte z97x-sli. I went in and looked at my SATA settings and all ports are activated and all the drives appear that should appear. What is going on?

 

[sickaid]

Depends on the mobo.Sounds like 0,1,2 ports are configured as Sata 6 Gb/s, and the other ones are 3 Gb/s.

 

[ArtPog]

No M.2 SSD is installed in the system and you have not created any RAID array?
There are one or two more SATA data ports following the SATA 4 port, isn't there? What happens when you connect a drive to one or both of those ports?

 

[amw297]

Depends on the mobo.Sounds like 0,1,2 ports are configured as Sata 6 Gb/s, and the other ones are 3 Gb/s.

is there any way to change that or is the only option buying a new mobo with 4 6 gb/s ports or more?

 

[amw297]

No M.2 SSD is installed in the system and you have not created any RAID array?
There are one or two more SATA data ports following the SATA 4 port, isn't there? What happens when you connect a drive to one or both of those ports?

I have no m2 drives installed and I am not running anything in RAID, and same result, I have 6 ports, 0-5, 0, 1 and 2 turn out fine, 3-5 do not, may just upgrade my mobo to the 270 chipset and hope they work there.

 

[ArtPog]

So what this comes down to is that...
1. You're absolutely certain the HDDs involved are all non-defective since in effect you've verified this.

2. There are NO OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEM other than the non-detection of SATA HDDs not being detected by three of the motherboard's SATA data ports/connectors that happen to be the "final" three SATA data ports on the motherboard, right?

3. You've checked (AND RECHECKED!) your BIOS settings to determine that ALL the SATA ports have been Enabled - and paid particular attention to SATA ports 3, 4, & 5? Confirm this.

4. And while it shouldn't be necessary in your case...assuming the BIOS contains SATA ports "hot-swap" or "hot-plug" settings, ensure those settings are Enabled, at least with respect to the problem SATA ports.

5. And check all your BIOS settings to ensure there's no setting that might - just might - be causing this mischief.

6. I'm just leery about the MB being defective in this situation. It could happen, of course, but it's very rare unless you had suffered some power-surge type of problem or some physical problem affecting the MB.

P.S.
If it does come down to your considering a new motherboard (I don't know any way one could "upgrade" your MB to a "270 chipset"), you would obviously be considering a new PC system. There would be no simple "upgrade" in your situation that I'm aware of.

So you're really talking about a new MB, CPU, RAM, and probably a few other "goodies", yes? In effect, a new PC.

I mention this because if that's the route you eventually take, I would strongly suggest you go with a Z370 system - not the Z270 system as you indicated. (If you were already working with a Z270 system then I would NOT upgrade.)

 

[amw297]

So what this comes down to is that...
1. You're absolutely certain the HDDs involved are all non-defective since in effect you've verified this.

2. There are NO OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEM other than the non-detection of SATA HDDs not being detected by three of the motherboard's SATA data ports/connectors that happen to be the "final" three SATA data ports on the motherboard, right?

3. You've checked (AND RECHECKED!) your BIOS settings to determine that ALL the SATA ports have been Enabled - and paid particular attention to SATA ports 3, 4, & 5? Confirm this.

4. And while it shouldn't be necessary in your case...assuming the BIOS contains SATA ports "hot-swap" or "hot-plug" settings, ensure those settings are Enabled, at least with respect to the problem SATA ports.

5. And check all your BIOS settings to ensure there's no setting that might - just might - be causing this mischief.

6. I'm just leery about the MB being defective in this situation. It could happen, of course, but it's very rare unless you had suffered some power-surge type of problem or some physical problem affecting the MB.

P.S.
If it does come down to your considering a new motherboard (I don't know any way one could "upgrade" your MB to a "270 chipset"), you would obviously be considering a new PC system. There would be no simple "upgrade" in your situation that I'm aware of.

So you're really talking about a new MB, CPU, RAM, and probably a few other "goodies", yes? In effect, a new PC.

I mention this because if that's the route you eventually take, I would strongly suggest you go with a Z370 system - not the Z270 system as you indicated. (If you were already working with a Z270 system then I would NOT upgrade.)

Yes for item 1, all drives appear as long as they are plugged into 0, 1, or 2 but disappear otherwise both for my hard and solids state drives. For 2 my pc has had no other issues to speak of, installation went fine as have any additions made after no other issues besides sata ports 3-5 not fully functioning. For 3 all sata ports are enabled in bios and show when a drive is plugged into it as they should. For 4 I do have hot-plug turned off for my sata ports but whenever I move sata connections around I always turn my pc off do the change then turn it back on after, maybe I can try making them hot plug. For 5 I have looked through all bios setttings, nothing should be affecting it. And for 6 it may not be the mobo I just could see no common theme besides the ports but maybe it isn't. And when I say upgrade I did mean get a newer better mobo CPU and ram, yeah, if there is a newer set than 270 I'll look into those I was thinking of doing a set of 2 8gb gskill trident ram, a 7700 CPU and the asus Maximus code which look pretty good from the specs I saw.

 

[sickaid]

Try your OS ssd in slot 0,second ssd in slot 1,and your 2 HDDs in 3-4.Go to your bios and arrange the Drive boot order from there.I hope you installed your OS while in AHCI mode (though i dont think thats the prob).Use Disk management to initialize the new SSD (diskmgmt.msc).Try updating bios too.Remove the RTC battery (CMOS) and leave it out for 30 minutes. Then insert the battery back.Worst case scenario is that you have a bad SATA controller and you need a new mobo.Whats your mobo btw?

 

[ArtPog]

So what this comes down to is that...
1. You're absolutely certain the HDDs involved are all non-defective since in effect you've verified this.

2. There are NO OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEM other than the non-detection of SATA HDDs not being detected by three of the motherboard's SATA data ports/connectors that happen to be the "final" three SATA data ports on the motherboard, right?

3. You've checked (AND RECHECKED!) your BIOS settings to determine that ALL the SATA ports have been Enabled - and paid particular attention to SATA ports 3, 4, & 5? Confirm this.

4. And while it shouldn't be necessary in your case...assuming the BIOS contains SATA ports "hot-swap" or "hot-plug" settings, ensure those settings are Enabled, at least with respect to the problem SATA ports.

5. And check all your BIOS settings to ensure there's no setting that might - just might - be causing this mischief.

6. I'm just leery about the MB being defective in this situation. It could happen, of course, but it's very rare unless you had suffered some power-surge type of problem or some physical problem affecting the MB.

P.S.
If it does come down to your considering a new motherboard (I don't know any way one could "upgrade" your MB to a "270 chipset"), you would obviously be considering a new PC system. There would be no simple "upgrade" in your situation that I'm aware of.

So you're really talking about a new MB, CPU, RAM, and probably a few other "goodies", yes? In effect, a new PC.

I mention this because if that's the route you eventually take, I would strongly suggest you go with a Z370 system - not the Z270 system as you indicated. (If you were already working with a Z270 system then I would NOT upgrade.)

Yes for item 1, all drives appear as long as they are plugged into 0, 1, or 2 but disappear otherwise both for my hard and solids state drives. For 2 my pc has had no other issues to speak of, installation went fine as have any additions made after no other issues besides sata ports 3-5 not fully functioning. For 3 all sata ports are enabled in bios and show when a drive is plugged into it as they should. For 4 I do have hot-plug turned off for my sata ports but whenever I move sata connections around I always turn my pc off do the change then turn it back on after, maybe I can try making them hot plug. For 5 I have looked through all bios setttings, nothing should be affecting it. And for 6 it may not be the mobo I just could see no common theme besides the ports but maybe it isn't. And when I say upgrade I did mean get a newer better mobo CPU and ram, yeah, if there is a newer set than 270 I'll look into those I was thinking of doing a set of 2 8gb gskill trident ram, a 7700 CPU and the asus Maximus code which look pretty good from the specs I saw.

I would definitely enable the hot-plug BIOS setting for the problem SATA ports. Most likely it won't make a difference but it's worth trying as a "shot-in-the-dark". There's nothing to lose by doing so.

I really can't think of anything else to resolve this problem other than to recheck your data/power connections to the problem SATA connectors.

 

[amw297]

So if anyone was still wondering what was going on I can say that after about 2 weeks, the drive just suddenly appeared. I have no idea what made it appear, I didn't change anything and had just given up for the time being until I upgraded my PC, and it just randomly appeared one day and is working just fine as are the rest of my drives. So I don't know why or how but hey, at least it works.

 

[sickaid]

Best bet is that somethings wrong with your drivers.Try reinstalling Windows and update the fuck out of your drivers-bios etc..