Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Soldier1968

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 24, 2023
3
0
Hello everyone, I was recently gifted a MP5.1 mid 2010 and am a brand new MAC user. Running Mojave with a Radeon Sapphire RX580, 16 GB Ram. My Mac does not recognize any of the 4 Sata backplane ports on the logic board. The person who gifted it to me confirmed they were working. Mac OSX is running off an SSD which is connected to the spare optical drive Sata cable. There are two 500 GB HDDs internally in slots 1 and 2. I verified they were working by connecting them externally through a Sata - USB adapter and the optical drive Sata connectors, one showed up as a Time Machine drive and the other as storage on the desktop and in Disk Utility. I also installed the SSD on slot 1 (internally) and the Mac would not boot. I connected it back to the spare optical drive Sata connector and it booted. I replaced the CMOS battery and reset the NVRAM and upon boot up it recognized the Time Machine drive in slot 1 but not the storage drive in slot 2. Troubleshooting further I decided to flip the Time Machine and storage drive slots. Upon boot up, neither was recognized and I'm back to square one. So I know the drives are serviceable and the drive on slot 1 did show up on the desktop and within Disk Utility so I know Sata port 1 does work, the question is what is causing these issues? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hey Soldier,

Well looks like no one had an answer for you!! I have the same problem. My 2012 5,1 can't seem to see the SATA drives. Everyone has answers for externals.

I have seen a few who said the SATA cables get loose!! I just don't know which cables and all 4 at the same time. I will keep exploring!
 
I’m reminded of when I got a 5,1 from an ad agency. None of the 4 drives would work. It was a bit before I discovered that they’d given me drive sleds from a 1,1-3,1 and the drives didn’t actually reach the connectors.
 
Wow, I am pretty baffled! When I moved my OCLP Monterey boot SATA Drive from one bay to other, the 2012 MP booted up flawlessly.

But it won’t let me clone that boot drive to any of the other drives…SATA internals, USB hard drives, USB sticks or SSDs!

This last comment applies to 2009 5,1 OCLP Monterey MP and the 2012 5,1 MP which now boots to Monterey using the boot drive from the 2009.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.