[Albert Flasher]

Greetings one & all,

What do I need to do, to get the Dell Inspiron 531 BIOS (Phoenix Award Ver. 1.0.3) to recognize all of the SATA controllers?

It seems it will only see the original two and nothing more.

I would like to add a second HDD but it won't recognize ANY of the ones I've installed.

I've been in the BIOS and when I arrow down to highlight the SATA entries it just goes right past them onto the next entry (System then Memory I think).

I also switched out the SATA cables and only SATA 0 & 1 recognize anything.

So, I guess my question really should be:

Is there somewhere in the BIOS I'm not seeing, where I can turn on the SATA 2 & 3 controllers?

Would flashing the BIOS make any difference?.

I consider myself to be well above average in PC savvy, however, in many years of working on computers I have never had this issue present itself.

Any & all help is greatly appreciated!

Albert Flasher

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Typically on a Dell you have to turn the SATA controllers for ports 2 and 3 on, by default unused SATA ports are off, otherwise the machine will take all day looking for something that doesn't exist.
An alternative solution is disconnect all power, open the machine up, find the CMOS battery (a watch type battery, only a bit bigger), take that out for twenty minutes or so and put it back in, then power up the machine. It should then decide on its own which SATA ports need to be enabled, which in your case should be all of them.

Edited by Neil Jones, 09 November 2009 - 04:38 PM.

[Neil Jones]

Typically on a Dell you have to turn the SATA controllers for ports 2 and 3 on, by default unused SATA ports are off, otherwise the machine will take all day looking for something that doesn't exist.
An alternative solution is disconnect all power, open the machine up, find the CMOS battery (a watch type battery, only a bit bigger), take that out for twenty minutes or so and put it back in, then power up the machine. It should then decide on its own which SATA ports need to be enabled, which in your case should be all of them.

Edited by Neil Jones, 09 November 2009 - 04:38 PM.

[Albert Flasher]

Hey Neil,

Unlike most Dell BIOS I have dealt with in the past, there is NO place in this BIOS to turn on the SATA controllers.

Thanks for your assistance!

Anyone else have any ideas?

-Albert Flasher-

[Neil Jones]

Have you taken the battery out like I suggested?

[RobertsB3]

Thanks Neil -- I registered just to thank you for this comment. I have the same system set up and could not find on any Dell or Windows site how to get SATA 2 or 3 to recognize. Taking out the battery did it. Then had to go into Control Panel to format the drives to get them them to be seen in Windows. Thanks.