Hi Neil,
I've read your post about your Mac Pro Mod, your job was very outstanding.
Now I followed the method of using
MaxConnect SAS/SATA Link, a miniSAS(SFF-8087) female to female connector/adapter sold by MaxUpgrades(My motherboard is
Asus P9X79 WS), but found no matter I made whichever connection
(connection 1: hard drive-->Apple SATA Harness SFF-8087 connector-->this Link-->SFF-8087 to 4xSATA cable-->motherboard; connection 2: hard drive-->Apple SATA Harness SFF-8087 connector-->this Link-->SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cable-->LSI 3ware 9750-4i Raid Card-->motherboard),I still can't get my drives recognized/detected by motherboard's BIOS, after thorough test/examination by myself, hard drive engineer of a data rescue company and technic engineer of Asus local Service Center today, I found my motherboard, hard drives, all the cables, the Link and Raid Card were all good, so what is the problem exactly?
I was told that the connection 1 was incompatible with the motherboard and unable to work/get recognized as normal SATA connection no matter what BIOS version it is.
I thought the connection 1 was intuitive and easy, but it won't work. So I think I have to discard connection 1 and keep connection 2, right?
Regarding the connection 2, the engineer used their own hardware to test whether this connection works, he first set up the drive configuration via "create unit" function in the Raid Card's BIOS and then the Windows in his system drive which was connected directly to his motherboard and not connected together with other secondary drives via Apple Harness cable COULD successfully recognize those secondary drives.
However, I want to boot my OS directly from the system drive via connection 2(= boot from the Raid Card, no any hard drive is connected to SATA port of the motherboard), he said this way will require help from a server specialist who has the skill to do the work. Is this way that difficult to a normal PC/Mac user like me to set up? I knew you have made identical connection as my connection 1 here, so I am very curious about how you made it work/how you made your drives recognized in the motherboard BIOS and OS and fully functional? And, do you know how to boot from a Raid Card like mine?
Really really eager to hear from you soon.
Thanks in advance.