I have a dell precision t3600 and I recently added a ssd without any issue. However, when plugging in the optical drive into on of the hdd ports I saw that it was not detected. I went into the BIOS and the only to drives listed are sata0 and sata1. I have update to the latest BIOS. I have looked up some other alternatives through google, but wanted to see if anyone had any advice/things for me to try. There are no other cards using or connected to the ports. Thanks for your help
Yes on the power cable being plugged in. When looking at the BIOS I do not see a way to enable the sata ports. Is there something specific that just two of the ports are labeled sata and the other four are hdd? I have seen mention of a sata controller for the t3600? Thanks for your help
If that Dell's motherboard does indeed have 6 SATA ports, they will be listed in the BIOS as:
SATA-0
SATA-1
SATA-2
SATA-3
SATA-4
SATA-5
or something very similar to it.
The used/enabled ports should be checked.
The unused/disabled ports should be unchecked.
That is correct on sata 0 and sata 1, but I have seen others posts where the HDD ports can be used also. I just installed a storage controller drive 9F51R_WN_3.7.4.1004_A03. It initially has not made a difference. I am going to rearrange my connections and see from there.
I saw stuff about a PERC controller being fitted for some versions of that PC but I think it was a hardware controller plugged in to one of the Sata ports.
Allan, the PERC is a RAID controller for Dells, used for SAS drives. I'm using one in my homebuilt system with a pair of SAS drives.
Looking through the user guide on the link Frank posted above, I'm not sure on can use more than two SATA drives, in spite of the number of available connections. Odd ...
Thanks for the replies. When I got the machine it did not have a PERC card and therefore not sure if it ever did. I do have two drives connected to the two sata ports. I was trying to find a way to use the hdd port for the optical drive, but from everyone's feedback it looks like that it is not possible. I was reading one post were the guy mentioned success and if I can find I will add a link. Thanks for everyone's help.
As long as you leave the boot drive connected to the system board, you should not need to reinstall Windows. It should, in fact, just install the drivers automatically when you plug it in and boot the PC. I wouldn't connect the optical drive until after the drivers got installed.
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