TUF B550 not seeing any sata connections present.

[revol68]

Hi long time since I've posted but having my head melted with a new motherboard. It posts fine but it doesn't seem to recognise any of my sata drives. I've tried all six ports with all 3 drives and not one of them gets recognised as present. This means I've nowhere to install my windows 10 to from my USB, which it recognises and will boot from.

I have no m.2 drive installed and I can feel a bit of heat in the ssds so I presume they are getting power. I've tried two different modular power sata cables and tried multiple sata connectors and still nothing. I also updated the Bios but no joy.

Could it actually just be all 6 sata ports are broke?

[Jonj1611]

What mainboard is it?

Have you tried removing the M.2 and see if anything gets recognised then?

Also in the bios is it set to AHCI or IDE, might be worth changing that to see if it does change anything

[revol68]

Hi its a Asus TUF b550 plus. I don't have an m.2 in it and have the bios set to ahci.

No matter which sata port I try I get nothing, I've tried three different cables. It's really baffling me, like if it was an error with the drives but they aren't even showing as present in the bios.

[Jonj1611]

Yeah sorry just saw it in the title lol. And read it as you had an M.2, sorry mate, one of those evenings

Don't suppose you have another computer you can try the drives with to rule them out? Or a sata to usb adapter

[DanceswithUnix]

Check the BIOS for compatibility mode.

By doesn't see the drives, do you mean they don't get identified at all in the BIOS screen or do you mean it won't boot from them? Modern boards don't like old MBR partition schemes on drives, it could just be that. But in that case, you should still see the drive detected on the sata port.

As you did a BIOS upgrade (a good first step), it might need a reset to factory defaults in the BIOS afterwards.

[revol68]

Updated the bios by usb, nada.

I don't have another computer to try the ssds with, I have a USB enclosure coming on Monday

[Jonj1611]

Its unlikely all your drives are faulty, if any at all but definitely need to rule that out

[ik9000]

are all the drives the same brand? What make/model are they?

[AGTDenton]

are all the drives the same brand? What make/model are they?

Good thought, could be that the SSDs actually need a firmware update, especially if they are a fair bit older than the motherboard

This may or may not be of any use but ASUS have a topic about this:
https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1044083/

If your SSDs are really old you may have to go into CSM mode. If available on your MOBO.
This is effectively legacy mode.

[revol68]

The ssds are all different brands, an older ocz, a relatively new SanDisk and PNY. I also tried a HDD via sata and its not working either.

It's a new psu with modular cables and the sata connections are well seated, and they do heat up abit after a while so I assume there's power going through.

[Jonj1611]

Wonder if its a faulty PSU? If you have a normal hard drive can you hear it spinning up?

[AGTDenton]

The ssds are all different brands, an older ocz, a relatively new SanDisk and PNY. I also tried a HDD via sata and its not working either.

It's a new psu with modular cables and the sata connections are well seated, and they do heat up abit after a while so I assume there's power going through.

Make sure to try setting the BIOS to defaults as DancesWithUnix suggests, as updating the BIOS doesn't always reset them.

The fact the HDD isn't working & you have recent SSDs suggests it's controller, BIOS configuration or PSU related as JonJ1611 says. As you are on Ryzen then some or all of the southbridge controller functionality, which includes SATA, is embedded into the CPU. This may make it a little more complex to nail down if it's not PSU related as you'll then need spare partss.
If you can access a spare PSU from somewhere that would be useful.

I would say not a RAM issue at this stage but if you can run a quick test it would help eliminate another component, and also try with a single RAM stick if you have multiple.

What is the full spec, do you have any non GPU PCIe cards installed?

[ik9000]

and if not do you have a pcie card with sata ports you could try?

[revol68]

So thanks for all the advice guys but I fear I may have found my problem.

I recently changed modular Psu back in December and change out all the cables, well all except one, I missed a molex cable and I ended up putting it into my new psu.

This would explain the pop that happened with that PSU and I'm guessing it's fried the connected drives.

I've just realised this after reading the sata cables can pop a drive, but I now think the guilty party was the little molex cable I'd forgotten all about.

I am now paranoid that I've mixed up the sata cable from the blown and new psu's and there doesn't seem anyway to make sure they are the correct ones.

[Jonj1611]

Wow thats bad luck mate :/ Definitely make sure you are using the correct cables with the correct psu. If in any doubt damage has been done to a PSU do not use that PSU! Get a new psu, even a cheap one and see if any of the drives power up, if not then unfortunately looks like you might be right

[ik9000]

Sry. It's an easy mistake to make, expecially with molex. A lot of cables are interchangeable but not where they have impedance/capacitance requirements such as in-cable caps and the like. It's safest never to assume and always just use the supplied cables. SFAIK you can use whatever you like daisy chained to the original cable (within reason), but that first line out of the PSU should always be the offical ones supplied with it.