Any Dell Experts To Help Me With SATA Card Install?
 

I tried to install an add-in PCI SATA card so I could add two additional SATA hard drives to my Dell Precision 670 Workstation. The motherboard comes integrated for two SATA hard drives.

I popped in the SABRANT PC102 PCI SATA card and added the two drives but the darned thing would not configure. What am I doing wrong? The thing would not boot. Also, I wonder if I popped the PCI card in the right slot? The only two slots that fit the card perfectly had been occupied by my PCIe video card and my Audigy II sound blaster card. I put the SATA card in one of the longer slots but had problems.

Any Ideas?

If I remember correctly, thus this is probably wrong, you need to install the drivers before you install the card because it tells your bios to look for a drive off the card. Also you may have to manualy configure it within bios to turn on.

If installing the drivers doesn't work post again and I'll walk you through what I think you should be doing in the bios.

Also, it is possible that putting your card in the wrong slot hurt it, but it really should not have. I put extra long cards (scsi) into std pci slots, letting the rear end of the card just hang out the back...and for whatever foolish reason it works perfectly. The extra part of the card may be higher transfer rates but I'm not complaining.

When you say "hurt it" do you mean damage? As in permanent damage?

Oh, and what I also notice is that after I took out the card and put everything back to normal, my BIOS now lists four additional lines on my DRIVES section of the bios. These lines say:

ADD-IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD-IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD-IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD-IN DRIVE (not present)

They were never there. What caused that?

You got it.

:)

you should pull your audigy just till you get it working then try it back in the other slot.

~~~~~
BTW, tot, searching for a track in a music library is rediculously long work.

what was possibly damaged? the motherboard or the PCI card?

(You answered so quickly. Please check the previous post! I edited it while you answered!)

I'm sure you mobo had pnp support for add in drive cards, as long as it was made in the last 10 years. Those should have gone away once the card was removed.

So now when you ahve the card installed and a drive connected to it, it still says "ADD-IN DRIVE (not present)" for all four?

Really either could have been hurt, but I would lean towards your mobo getting hurt moreso since it is the one supplying the power to the card.

Let me reboot my work Dell here and see what my bios tells me.

I took the SATA card and two new SATA drives out of the case and re-installed my IDEs. Now, my IDE drives work flawlessly. I have a Dell 670 Precision Workstation 64 Bit Edition that I purchased in June. The Mobo has two integrated SATA ports to which I have two SATA drives connected. I guess I wanted to take advantage of having two more SATAs so I bought an add-in card and that is where we are now. But I have since removed it and replaced my IDE drives which are running smoothly.

However, my BIOS still lists the four ADD-IN drives. My box is full with the following:

40 gig SATA System Drive
200 gig SATA data drive
250 gig IDE data drive
250 gig IDE data drive
120 gig IDE data drive
DVD Burner

I assume the card flashed your bios to list the additional drives and now it is set to 'auto' for configuration so it's still looking for the card to find the drives. If you go in and turn each one to off, which is freaky easy in dell bios, you shouldn't that message anymore

Turning them off means removing the numbers from in front of them, right? Well, I think I have already removed the numbers from in front of them and they are still listed.

I made a mistake:
 

I made a mistake. Below is what shows in my boot sequence not in my DRIVES drop down menu. Sorry. I turned off the numbers in front of the:

ADD IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD IN DRIVE (not present)
ADD IN DRIVE (not present)

on the boot sequence. These are still there.

If someone doesn't answer before I come in monday I'll likely have an answer for you.