4 of my 6 SATA ports do not recognize existing or new drives. I am trying to add an SSD,

[dsbunc]

I purchased a 500gb SSD in order to clone my existing HDD.  The intent is to put everything I currently have on the SSD, use it to boot from, then use the HDD as storage (I plan to leave Win10 on the old HDD as well).  My 1st  problem started with the SATA ports.  The mobo comes with 6.  2 are used, 1 by the original HDD and 1 by the DVD drive.  The mobo is MSI MS-7778 ver 1.0.  No matter what I plug into the 4 SATA ports that are free, nothing is recognized.  I plugged the new SSD and the DVD drive into these 4 ports, then booted the computer, and nothing shows up except for the boot drive.  I ended up disconnecting the DVD drive from the port it was originally plugged into, plugged in the SSD and my computer recognized it.  So I initialized it and cloned my HDD to it.  I then shutdown, unplugged the original HDD, plugged the new SSD into the same SATA port.  Booted up into BIOS to make sure the SSD showed up (it did) and I made sure it was in the appropriate spot in the boot sequence.  I then shutdown again and plugged the old HDD into the SATA port that the DVD drive was originally plugged into, the rebooted.  My computer did not recognize the old HDD.  I went back into the BIOS and the boot sequence just said USB Hard Drive (not Hard Drive).  Under Device Configuration, USB Hard Drive is listed and under that, there are 2 options: the new SSD and the old HDD.  What can I do to get this setup properly?  I am thinking to just reset the BIOS to original settings (I really have never touched anything in the BIOS).  Any ideas?

[wb2001]

@dsbunc,

Your BIOS is recognizing 2 separate drives with "boot sector".  That is why it's forcing the 2 options.

The best solution is the remove the old hard drive and store it.  It's had a long duty life since 2013.

1) If your system would crash, you would need to have that drive intact.

2) IMHO, a new data drive, ie 1 TB - 2TB would be excellent.

3) Want more advice?  I would purchase an WD 500GB 2.5" drive with USB 3.0 external case to compliment your new SSD.  You can then clone the SSD to the new WD, and store it.  As your progress, make incremental clones into the WD.  My main computers all have 500GB Samsung SSD's that are cloned to their WD counterparts. Usually ever 30-45 days.

[dsbunc]

Thanks @Wb2001.  I will most likely end up doing this, but do you have any ideas as to why 4 of the 6 SATA ports would not work?  It appears that they are enabled in BIOS settings.  Or, why does the computer only recognize 1 Hard Drive when both are plugged in?  Sounds like a BIOS issue, but it may not be worth beating my head against the wall.