Dell Optiplex 755 - 2 sata ports (2&3) not working on motherboard. They have been switched to "on" in the bios, but will not recognize sata HDD or sata DVD. Only ports 1 & 2 are working, so I now have a choice of 2 hard drives or 1 hard drive and a DVD. Is there a secret to activate these ports or in the MB faulty?

old Optiplex. are you sure its a 380 , as they have SATA drives.
NO OS stated, on this desktop
nor what case size you have of the 3(and 3 motherboards)
DT/MT/or SSF?
but IDE drive failure is that. and not really there.
no symptoms stated, wont boot unstated windows? or linux?

the word secondary is IDE old tech. (very odd that)
this PCs motherboard uses a ICH7 south bridge.
and has one unused IDE port.

dell forums show no hits for this.
my guess bios bug this, the bios tries to scan
the vestigial IDE port.

open the case
and tell the helper what is in this PCI slots.
only then can there be any IDE cards there, if there.
The dell 380 has no IDE ports.(no mobo jacks at all IDE)
but the bios may be old and is buggy
and when the HDD goes dead,
it scans all SATA ports first, then goes to some legacy echo failure "Secondary master " IDE failure.


that is way as asked if the BOOTS ok(I bet NO)
this pc is 9 year old, HDD do fail that old, super common that.

in any event if windows does not boot, the hDD is dead
or fully infected, with virus./corrupted.
we test the HDD next, every time, ask.

power on and go into BIOS and see if you main HDD shows up; and is #1 in the boot order.
i may show up missing, and is dead HDD
or the HDD motor is silent,a dead HDD.

Assuming the the HDD is working fine, go to the BIOS settings and you can turn SATA mode to IDE mode to bypass the issue.

ok, I'll bite ( saying you the eject button is dead or what?)_

1. it must have a DVD drive.
2. the drive must not be bad
3. the 2 cables must both be connected.! 15pin power and Sata both ends.
4. The PC power button light glows correctly.
5. The BIOS does not have SATA ports disabled (common)
6. The PsU MUST BE Running its fans and all fans spin. !!!
7. PC must not beep.(codes)
8. if all that looks good the eject works now. does it"?

Can the disk viewed in disk management?

Right Click 'My Computer'-->Manage-->storage-->Disk Management

Disk 0 usually for windos partition (your 80GB HD)
If Disk 1 (your TB HDD) show unallocated, you need to format it to NTFS.

Right Click and select 'Format'.
!!!!Make sure it is your TB HDD!!!!!!!

Hi,

It makes no difference providing the computer motherboards support SATA interface.

SATA 1 and 2 drivers are in the BIOS. If all the computers have SATA 1 you can upgrade the BIOS to latest version via Dell's support website.





Regards.

Generally an indication that the Hard Drive isn't detected
Things to check, go to BIOS F2, reset defaults and reboot, see if the HDD is seen. If it is, the battery on the motherboard is likely dead and needs replacement (Watch battery at Walmart, 3 dollars)
If the HDD doesn't detect after resetting the BIOS, then most likely a Hard Drive failure

go to bios select autodetect on hdd then f10 and restart that will fix ur problem

unplug the driver and then plug in diffrent spot.. if not no other spot for plug then leave it unpluged. turn computer on let it all boot up then turn back off and replug it back up. this should let it redetect your drive

This is common to other mainboards, the SATA controller have it's own BIOS, but it only works correctly using two identical SATA HD's at same time for data protection purposes. If you have a free PCI slot there are expansion cards based on VIA chipset VT6421 with 2 internal SATA ports, other external and one IDE. See one here

esta placa es una mierda , no tienes drivre