ASUS Sabertooth Mk 1 Z170 SSD, HD and CD ROM placement

[migrantwing]

New build for my girlfriend. Everything was going well but then I noticed one of my HD's was not showing up. Tested it in another port where I knew another HD was working and it showed up fine. The problem is that I have an SSD as my primary drive, a WD Black 1TB as a secondary drive (Program files, pics, docs etc) and then a WD 2TB drive for backup and storage, plus a CD ROM. The problem is I cannot get all of them to show up at the same time. It almost seems like when I plug a drive in somewhere, one cancels another out.

Can someone please explain what the Yellow/Beige ports, the Black ports, and the grey ports usage and which port should I use for 1: SSD, 2: WD Black 1TB, 3: WD Blue 2TB and 4: CD ROM. I understand that some are SATA, some are AS Media ports and some are SATA Express ports with connecting SATA ports. The mobo has 'thermal armour' on it and sadly this hides the markings and writing on the peripherals, so I can't even see what the ports are labelled as.

It's driving me insane. I guess the endless hours I've spent trying to fgure this all out has made my brain tired.

Thanks in advance.

 

[cin19]

1) Yellow/Beige ports are the AS Media ports, which can support ahci mode and for data driver only, not for RAID, you need to install the ASMedia storage driver first.
2) The two sata ports ( gray) next those AS Media ports are the intel SATA #5/#6 port.
3) The middle two are the SATA Express ports.
4) The rest four sata ports ( gray) are also intel #1 to #4 ports. More info check the manual, page 1-18. http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/SABERTOOTH_Z170_MARK1/E11213_SABERTOOTH_Z170_MARK_1_UM_V2_WEB0304.pdf

So you connect the SSD ( I assumed it is the regular sata type SSD) into the #1 sata port, you can plug the black 1TB, blue 2TB, and the CD drive into either #2, #3, #4, #5, or #6. You can use those AS Media ports for the black 1TB and the blue 2TB too, but make sure install the ASMedia storage driver first.
Also make sure you set all the intel SATA ports are enabled in the BIOS, check the manual, page 3-31.

 

[migrantwing]

Thank you, cin19! It has been a while since I built a PC and the different colouring of the ports confused me. I am used to seeing blue and black ports

Once again, thank you for your help. I may be back to ask more advice