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Dell Poweredge 840 does not recognize SATA Drives

I recently installed a new SATA hard drive in my Dell Poweredge840 running MS SBS 2003R Bios A03.

When booting, the system did not recognize either SATA in bay 1 or bay 2. In the Bios it states "Unknown Device" For these drives. I tried turning on the drives to auto, but no joy bay 4 is off.

I tried removing the new drive in bay 2 and shut it off in the bios, but no joy. Now I can no longer access the old drive in bay 1. This should not have to be this difficult.

Thanks

nobus

do you have a setting in the bios for the sata controllers?
set it to IDE, or compatible

fasteddie565

ASKER

There is a setting for the controller that is set to ATA compatible

nobus

ok that should be ok
test each drive separately, and check if the bios sees it (may be 1 drive is bad and blocks the other)
or test each drive on anothe rPC - to be sure they both work

fasteddie565

ASKER

The drive in port 1 worked moments before installing the new drive in port 2. When I remove the drive in port 2, the system still does not see the drive in port 1. I will try switching the drives between ports, but I do not have another machine I can use to test them on.

Thanks for your help.

nobus

you surely have a friend or relative with a pc? test them there

fasteddie565

ASKER

I have other PC's but do not see any SATA connections. Let me check

nobus

here is how they look : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

fasteddie565

ASKER

I have tested the drives separately and they are both good. I read about Dell servers having this issue, but no one seems to have a solution. Sorry for leaving this unattended for so long.

nobus

check if the bios updates adress your problem
latest is A08, so your several behind http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/driverdetails?driverid=J52W5

fasteddie565

ASKER

OK, that makes sense, I am traveling this week and will try the bios update Saturday.

nobus

ok - waiting for results

fasteddie565

ASKER

No Joy on the BIOS update. I thought for sure that was it.

nobus

i just saw "Now I can no longer access the old drive in bay 1" so it looks your disk controller is not working right (unless all drives are bad)
you cna test each drive to check if they show up on another system; but i would look at the controller first

fasteddie565

ASKER

Could the controller go bad merely from installing a new disk? It worked fine seconds before I put in the new disk and the other drive is brand new.

How would I check the controller?

Thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

nobus

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fasteddie565

ASKER

There were multiple solutions offered and I am not sure which one did the trick. When posting instructions, do not always assume that people know what you are talking about. In other words, please provide more detailed explanations.

Thank you very much for your assistance.