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"Extra" SATA Ports Not Working

N

notsane

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
13
0
I just picked up a 2.66 MP 2GB and got some SATA-eSATA PCI plates to route the 2 hidden SATA ports to my eSATA drive and it was a no go. I tried both having the drive powered up then booting (system hung at the gray screen) and powering on the drive after the MP was up and running (nothing happened). any ideas?

Mike:mad:
 
I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but were you trying to boot off that drive connected to the extra sata ports or just use it as an extra drive?

I'm planning on doing the same thing with an external drive so I can move it back and forth from my HTPC for movie editing.

Have you tried connecting the PCI plate to one of the 4 normal drive sata connectors?
 
Damn that is strange. I assume the MP motherboard/case doesnt have any switch in it that identifies a hard drive is installed in the bay?
 
I was just trying to use it as another external drive, not booting. I bet it is disabled in software somewhere. or a future firmware update will fix this issue (about the time blue ray add ons are available)
 
notsane said:
I just picked up a 2.66 MP 2GB and got some SATA-eSATA PCI plates to route the 2 hidden SATA ports to my eSATA drive and it was a no go. I tried both having the drive powered up then booting (system hung at the gray screen) and powering on the drive after the MP was up and running (nothing happened). any ideas?

Mike:mad:
Click to expand...


The Mac Pro supports SATA I and IInot the newer eSATA If you have a regular SATA drive my guess is it will work fine.
 
eSATA and SATA are essentially the same. ESATA just sends stronger signals thus allowing for longer cables - 2m instead of 1m if I remember correctly. If There is a 1m cable going from the connector to the back of the mac and another from the back of the mac to the hard drive and the total length is over 1m then I guess issues could arise. If you connect a normal SATA drive to the motherboard connector and power it from another power supply or the optical drive's connector then we will know for sure if its disabled or not.
 
hmm

Good point, I will have some time to try that out soon. I really need them to be extermal though (I suppose I will just buy a PCI Express card)
 
notsane said:
Has anyone else tried to use these ports?
Click to expand...

I have been waiting to try this. As soon as mine comes in (sep 12th) I plan on trying this.
 
It works! I connected a drive using a 4" sata cable (only one I had with 90 degree connector) and power from the cd drive. The computer started up fine and I'm now copying 49,000 files off of it to another drive in bay 2.
 
Great news, did you have to do anything special besides using a 90 degree connector to make it fit?

Do you use a PCI passthrough? pics?
 
I just used the 4" cable and a sata power adapter. It was only temporary to see if this thing actually works and to get files off of the drive.

Here are some pictures. It's nothing much.
 

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How did you get it apart? I had to squeeze my connecter under...
 
Remember, besides the Optical Power -- there are the 2 auxiliary power connectors for the PCI Express video card's "booster cables."
 
Sata ports not working for me

AM in Boot camp on Mac Pro. Did anyone get the extra sata ports to work?
 
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