BIOS "ez tuning wizard" doesn't see SATA6 SSD drives, but Linux OS does

[Denis Goddard]

Here's a very strange thing.

I have a Maximus VII Hero, flashed with the latest BIOS.
Into the mobo I have plugged 2x300GB Intel SSD SATA3, and also 2x300 GB SATA2 Western Digital hard drives.

In the BIOS menus, I do not see any mention of the SSD's at all. It's like they don't exist.

However, a Fedora-20 DVD sees the Intel SSD's just fine, in the "Install to disk" screen. What gives?! How can Linux see the drives, if the BIOS cannot?

I want to make a RAID1 out of these SSDs, but the mobo doesn't think they exist.

I tried unplugging the WD SATA2 drives. No luck. Mobo still doesn't see the SSDs, but Linux sees them no problem.

 

[popatim]

motherbds bios wont see the drives if you already have the sata ports in raid mode. You need to enter the raid bios to see the drive, create the raid array, & format it. depending on which version of windows you are installing, you may need to load drivers for the raid controller.

 

[Denis Goddard]

motherbds bios wont see the drives if you already have the sata ports in raid mode. You need to enter the raid bios to see the drive, create the raid array, & format it. depending on which version of windows you are installing, you may need to load drivers for the raid controller.

Thanks for the response.

These drives are not part of a RAID array yet -- I need the mobo to see them, so I can use it to *create* the array. I've unplugged all other SATA devices (except the DVD). Yet the "ez tuning wizard" function of the Maximus VII Hero mobo, which has the tool for creating RAID arrays, says there are no applicable disks.

When I boot off the Fedora disk, it sees both SSDs and treats them as separate independent drives and offers to install to one or the other of them. Of course that's not what I want; I want the mobo to see them so I can RAID1 them and *then* install Linux.

I just cannot understand how an OS sees the drives and the mobo does not. I'm assuming it's something too clever by half in this high-feature-set motherboard

 

[Denis Goddard]

Root cause finally found -- huge props to Dave, the tech guy at my local IT shop, for figuring it out.

Although all the SATA3 ports are in one panel on this mobo, there are particular SATA ports in that panel that are specially designated/optimized/whatever for Intel storage. Plugging these two Intel SATA SSDs into the correct particular specific SATA ports causes them to be recognized and visible within the various mobo BIOS tools, including the RAID configuration wizard.

Just a matter of plugging the damn cable in the right port