Question Only two SATA-connections (out of 6) working on old ACER ASPIRE M3203

[bsthuis]

I am working on a old ACER Aspire M3203 (motherboard RS780M03A1-8EKSMH with 6 SATA II connectors). SSD on SATA 5 and HDD on SATA 6. That works fine with Windows 10 and even Windows 11! So there is no need to discard this PC now! However when I connect the SSD to one of the other SATA-connectors on the motherboard it does not work. Also when I connect a CDROM (or HDD) to one of the other SATA-connectors ( SSD and HDD still on SATA 5 an 6) on the mainboard the CDROM does not work. The CDROM is recognized in the BIOS (version P01.B2 set to AHCI) but does NOT show up in windows explorer; this is not related to the Windows-version.

I checked the CDROM and SATA-cables on another computer and that works without problems. Also strange is that in the BIOS I see only two SATA-ports (5 and 6).
(here i wanted to add screendumps of the BIOS but did not succeed)
Can it be that those SATA ports are damaged?? Or is it related to some setting like AHCI or RAID in the BIOS?
Help appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

That works fine with Windows 10 and even Windows 11!
If you're on what I'm assuming is an AMD Athlon II X3 435 then Windows 10, yes. Windows 11, no.

Out of curiosity, your motherboard is on the latest BIOS version, correct? What PSu are you working with and how old is said PSU in your prebuilt?

 

[bsthuis]

Thanks for the quick answer.
The processor is a AMD Athlon II X4 620 2,60GHz
PSU? Power Supply Unit? I do not have the computer at my disposal at the moment. It is my friends and i have been experimenting with upgrading to Windows 11; at first glance that seemed to work much better than expected ..... with no warranty for the future.
So i cannot tell you details about the The Power Supply Unit but it has all SATA-power connectors. And yes it is the most recent Bios (05-19-2010 ..... recent?!)

bsthuis

 

[Misgar]

Or is it related to some setting like AHCI or RAID in the BIOS?

That would be my guess. If the BIOS is set to RAID, you might not see the drives.

AHCI is the recommend setting, but I've just booted up an old Phenom X4 965 and discovered the BIOS is set to IDE:-

OnChip SATA Type = [Native IDE]
OnChip SATS Port4/5 Type = [IDE]
Onboard SATA/IDE Device = [Enabled]
Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode = [IDE}

With these settings, the BIOS sees the following drives:

An Optiarc DVD RW drive on IDE Channel 0 Master
A Toshiba hard disk on IDE Channel 1 Master
A Samsung hard disk on IDE Channel 1 Slave
A second Samsung hard disk on IDE Channel 2 Master
A Plexstor 128GB SSD on IDE Channel 2 Slave
A Samsung hard disk on IDE Channel 3 Master
A Kingston 128GB SSD on IDE Channel 4 Master

The reason why I set SATA to Native IDE is because this computer started off as a Windows XP machine, which didn't have native support for AHCI without slipstreaming AHCI drivers on to the installation DVD. I couldn't be bothered to add the AHCI drivers to XP at a later date and change the BIOS to AHCI, but instead I kept it on IDE. A few years later I added a Windows 7 boot SSD and finally a Windows 10 boot SSD. I can now start this system up in XP, 7 and 10 with all drives set to Native IDE. A bit slower than AHCI on 7 or 10, but I'm not worried.

Check your BIOS and see if it has an IDE/AHCI/RAID option associated with ports 0, 1, 2 and 3. In my BIOS, I can set ports 0 to 3 independently of ports 5 and 6. I could configure ports 0 to 3 as AHCI (for Windows 7/10) and keep ports 5 and 6 as IDE (to boot from XP).

There's also the possibility that fitting a PCI/PCIe card has robbed the first four SATA ports of lanes on your mobo, rendering them useless.

I'm not sure which way round it is, but I think some of my SATA ports are driven direct from the CPU/chipset and other SATA ports from a third party (Silicon Image) controller.

Check your BIOS and look for IDE/AHCI/RAID and experiment.

 

[bsthuis]

This ACER M3203 started off as Windows 7 with a 1TB HDD and two CDROMs. But when I opened this PC it had one 256GB SSD (at SATA5) and two CDROMs (at SATA6 and 1) and the BIOS was set to RAID. The HDD was NOT connected and only one of the two CDROMs was functioning (I do not recall if that was the one on SATA1, but it must have). I tested the non responding CDROM and the cables on another PC and that worked. I changed he BIOS to AHCI and installed Windows 11 on the SSD (SATA5) and then changed the SATA connector from the working CDROM (on SATA6) to the 1TB HDD. And as I I told you before Windows 11 worked really fine and quite responsive!
The Bios on the page "Integrated Peripherals" you can only Enable/Disable "Onboard IDE Controller" and "Onboard SATA Controller". And "Onboard SATA Mode" has 3 options: IDE, RAID (default) and AHCI. No further SATA or IDE settings.
I repeat .... When I connect a CDROM or HDD to one of the SATA ports 1 , 2, 3, or 4 it is recognized in the BIOS under Bootoptions settings but it does not show up in Windows Explorer.
No PCI slot is Used Only a graphic card is mounted in a special slot.
I think I tried setting the BIOS setting to IDE (not sure as i tried so much different things) and if I remember well windows did not boot any more and it did not solve the SATA ports problem.
In the end I mounted an old IDE-CDROM (I had to solder an extra IDE power connector) and finally ended up with an oldie with a more than satisfying Windows 11 and a working SSD HDD and CDROM.
But.... The SATA-problem kept my mind busy..... that's why.

 

[dev_cyberpunk]

The Bios on the page "Integrated Peripherals" you can only Enable/Disable "Onboard IDE Controller" and "Onboard SATA Controller". And "Onboard SATA Mode" has 3 options: IDE, RAID (default) and AHCI. No further SATA or IDE settings.

Then the settings should be:
Onboard IDE Controller: Enabled
Onboard SATA Controller: Enabled
Onboard SATA Mode: IDE