MacPro 2008 Won't Recognize 2 Extra SATA Ports?

[astrostu]

This is a really weird question, but here'goes: I just got my internal blu-ray burner. I hooked it up, removing the fans and all that jazz to get the SATA cable plugged in. Turned on the computer, and the drive was not recognized.

I know it has power, since I can operate it manually (but no disks inserted are recognized in System Profiler nor Toast). Oh, and in the System Profiler under Serial-ATA it does list 6 ports (though 2 with hard drives, 1 and 4-6 are empty).

I fiddled around, made sure cables were plugged in, still nothing.

Then I tried to just plug in one of my extra internal hard drives through the connectors I was using for the 2nd optical drive (power and SATA cable). It won't recognize the hard drive (doesn't seem to even know it's there).

Any ideas here? I'm at a pretty much total loss other than thinking that the two extra SATA ports on my motherboard are dead.

 

[aibo]

where are you getting power from?

 

[astrostu]

The power is from the extra power supply coming off the first drive.

Anyway, after 3.5 hrs, problem solved. I learned that SATA ports are not hot-swappable. As in, one must turn off computer and then fiddle with them and then turn on. I figured that out by just trying to put that drive back in while the computer was on, and it didn't realize it was there. So on restarting, it realized that SOMETHING was there when I had the extra hard drive put into one of the extra two SATA ports on the motherboard, but it couldn't figure out it was a hard drive. It just spun its wheels for 5 minutes and then just gave an error in the System Profiler.

So now that I knew it WAS recognizing that SOMETHING was there, I tried the optical drive again. It worked!

So, I'm really not sure what the problem was. I am 99.9% sure it was not an issue of the cable being plugged in all the way, as I checked that multiple times ... 2-3 hrs ago. But otherwise, as to why it wasn't working before but is now, I'm at a loss. I'm sure anyone reading this will probably assume it was a loose cable, but as I said, I can almost positively assure you it wasn't.

 

[surflordca]

The power is from the extra power supply coming off the first drive.

Anyway, after 3.5 hrs, problem solved. I learned that SATA ports are not hot-swappable. As in, one must turn off computer and then fiddle with them and then turn on. I figured that out by just trying to put that drive back in while the computer was on, and it didn't realize it was there. So on restarting, it realized that SOMETHING was there when I had the extra hard drive put into one of the extra two SATA ports on the motherboard, but it couldn't figure out it was a hard drive. It just spun its wheels for 5 minutes and then just gave an error in the System Profiler.

So now that I knew it WAS recognizing that SOMETHING was there, I tried the optical drive again. It worked!

So, I'm really not sure what the problem was. I am 99.9% sure it was not an issue of the cable being plugged in all the way, as I checked that multiple times ... 2-3 hrs ago. But otherwise, as to why it wasn't working before but is now, I'm at a loss. I'm sure anyone reading this will probably assume it was a loose cable, but as I said, I can almost positively assure you it wasn't.

You do realize that you are lucky that you didn't fry your motherboard don't you? NEVER, EVER plug or unplug something without having the power shut off. The exception is USB devices...

 

[gugucom]

I just had a discussion abou this with nanfrog in another thread:

I was going by the '06 - '08 models (you've an '06MP in your sig).

Going by the forum, the ODD_SATA ports (ports 5 & 6 under the fan assy) seemed to only work with the AHCI drivers. Never quite understood why, but figure there's something different in the firmware between those pair and those attached via the MiniSAS cable (ports 1 - 4) that Windows wouldn't see them until the drivers were loaded. (Those posts are rather old now, but I think the last ones are from ~ Apr - Jun '08).

All I can go by is the Windows device manager which shows only one position for SATA devices in legacy and in AHCI mode on my 2006 model. I have never attempted to connect a hard drive there either in legacy or in AHCI mode. I did however connect a BD and got no recognition in legacy. This is how I found out that AHCI existed and went to the trouble of activating it. It may be as you say. That for reasons beyond explanation the two ports are run by the same device as the HDD ports but are inactive in legacy mode. It certainly is a bit strange.

In OS X the ODD-SATA ports are alwways in AHCI mode. But it appears that they are also not hot swappable. So you have to power down the board to have them recognized by the OS. I agree with SurfLord that it is bad practise to risk a 700$ board by fiddling these ports when they are juiced.

 

[kingkezz]

Unless things have changed in six months, you won't be able to use Encore to author Blu-Ray using those free SATA ports. Encore will crash. I had to get a SATA-IDE adapter to use my BD burner in my early 08 mac pro.

 

[gugucom]

The 2006-2008 MP cannot boot from ODs over the ODD-SATA ports due to the EFI not recognizing a SATA boot device.

The 2009 MP has different HDD and ODD devices in the chipset software. The 2 ODD ports are capable of booting from ODs.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

FWIW, this worked beautifully for putting a BR drive in my 2008 MP, boots etc etc...


Sata to Pata Adapter

 

[Nadav35]

Yes, but..

If you have a SATA optical drive already with the sata port in the back and you convert it to IDE. You might as well have gotten a native IDE optical drive, or does the drive still run at the native SATA SPEED???

this we need to know..

FWIW, this worked beautifully for putting a BR drive in my 2008 MP, boots etc etc...


Sata to Pata Adapter

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If you have a SATA optical drive already with the sata port in the back and you convert it to IDE. You might as well have gotten a native IDE optical drive, or does the drive still run at the native SATA SPEED???

this we need to know..

Well the issue was that I wanted to put a bluray drive in the machine, and IDE versions of those don't seem to be too common if available at all. This was the easiest way to get the job done for my purposes. I get full speed out of the drive.

 

[madwolf]

eSATA generally supports hot-plug. OS X I think doesn't support it.

 

[nanofrog]

eSATA generally supports hot-plug. OS X I think doesn't support it.

You need driver support, and the Client Edition of OS X doesn't provide it. So to have it in the Client Ed., you need a card that provides the support with it's drivers (on that card only). But there's no support for Hot Plugging with internal drives, as there's no Inrush Current Limiter. External enclosures can, as they have thier own PSU's, and can be switched ON/OFF after the drive is connected to an eSATA port.