2 out of 4 HDDs not showing up on my BIOS or OS.

[rahulsanjay18]

Build:

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K 3.9 GHz 20-Core Processor

Noctua NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler

Asus Z890 AYW GAMING WIFI W ATX LGA1851 Motherboard

G.Skill Ripjaws M5 Neo RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory

PNY OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card

Montech KING 95 PRO ATX Mid Tower Case

MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

 

Running Ubuntu 24.04

 

only the drives connected by sata power extension cables work. the drives themselves are confirmed to be working by a tech at a Microcenter.

Things I've tried:

- making sure SATA ports are enabled

- ensuring the power and data cables are connected

- taking it to a repair shop (they couldnt figure it out)

 

should note i had an older build where all 4 drives would show up, things only changed when i moved to a new case and added a GPU and new power supply.

At the moment I'm reinstalling the OS

[AbydosOne]

2 minutes ago, rahulsanjay18 said:

and new power supply

Did you reuse any modular cables from a previous/different power supply?

[rahulsanjay18]

After reading the guidelines to posting, I tried to make my post as succinct as possible. However, for the sake of adding more context, here is a fuller explanation. feel free to not read it if you don't think it is necessary.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VQKwFZ

Alright this one is a bit long, please bear with me.

My old PC (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FWsrkJ) had four 14 TB hard drives on it. It ran fine, no big issues, but I wanted a new GPU for it. So I bought it, realized the power supply was not enough and that it'd probably be best if i bought a new case to house everything. I set up the power supply and case and everything, only to find out that 2 out of my 4 drives suddenly don't show up. Didnt matter which of the 2, all I knew was, when i plugged in the SATA power extension cables into 2 of the drives, then and only then did the drives show up.

Confused, I took it to a computer repair shop, where they told me I needed a new motherboard, so I decided to just go for it and buy a new CPU, motherboard and RAM, and paid them to build the PC, because I didnt want to risk it not working. They built the PC, only to run into the same problem I had before, where only 2 HDD drives of the 4 showed up. They determined:

- none of my drives were damaged

- The power supply was sufficient

- the drives only showed up if the extender cables were attached to it

so they put in some more extender cables on the other 2 drives and we still encountered the same problem.

The guy told me that motherboards have a limit to how much storage they can handle, something to do with the chipset, and i accepted it and took my PC back, but i know that isnt true because i had a different motherboard that worked fine before i took anything in.

I made sure all SATA ports were enabled on the bios, even flipping them off and back on again, and i know the power and data cables are plugged in.

[rahulsanjay18]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

Did you reuse any modular cables from a previous/different power supply?

no, I bought the power supply from MicroCenter and paid them to build it for me so it didnt screw up again, id imagine they did not do that. the old power supply anyway had all its cables directly attached to it, so I'm pretty sure they used the right cables.

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, rahulsanjay18 said:

had four 14 TB hard drives on it

Are you aware of PWDIS "feature" of some SATA drives? You may need to disconnect/tape over the 3.3V pins of the SATA connector to get the drives to spin up. What model drives are they?

[rahulsanjay18]

2 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Are you aware of PWDIS "feature" of some SATA drives? You may need to disconnect/tape over the 3.3V pins of the SATA connector to get the drives to spin up. What model drives are they?

WD WUH721414ALE604 Ultrastar DC HC530 14TB SATA 6G 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD

 

I am not aware of this feature, though that issue did not come up in my last build with these same exact drives

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, rahulsanjay18 said:

WD WUH721414ALE604

Almost positive these drives will have PWDIS. There are a few ways around it you can find by searching for PWDIS here and on other forums/Youtube.

[rahulsanjay18]

2 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Almost positive these drives will have PWDIS. There are a few ways around it you can find by searching for PWDIS here and on other forums/Youtube.

Sure I'll look at that, it does look like it does have PWDIS. I guess my question here would be, why do 2 drives boot fine but the other 2 do not? its all the same model.

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, rahulsanjay18 said:

Sure I'll look at that, it does look like it does have PWDIS. I guess my question here would be, why do 2 drives boot fine but the other 2 do not? its all the same model.

The power extensions you mentioned using may not have 3.3V lines.

[rahulsanjay18]

7 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

The power extensions you mentioned using may not have 3.3V lines.

incredible. it did work. thank you.