D945GNT SATA drive limit

[CADprofessor]

I am working on an Intel D945GNT motherboard.  Using BIOS NT94510J.86A.4131.2009.1122.2232.  It currently has two SATA drives.  I tired to add a 3rd sata drive but after the BIOS is finished the screen displays an boot error message and tells me to hit CTRL ALT DEL.  I have checked the drive bios setting and all three drives show up in the BIOS.  If I remove drive two and replace it with the new drive the system boots without issue.   What is the most current BIOS and could that be an issue?  Thanks for any assistance.

[CADprofessor]

The error message is;  A disk read error has occurred.  Hit ctrl alt del to continue.

[n_scott_pearson]

It sounds like you have a bad SATA cable or a bad SATA port. Try using the 4th port instead.

...S

[CADprofessor]

Thanks for the reply.  Tried two different Sata cables and plugged them into different ports, getting the same error.  Tried port 3 and 4.   Why would the BIOS show the correct drive info if the cable or port was bad.    

[n_scott_pearson]

Bad as in not acting properly. Some things could work; others obviously do not.

Here's a thought for improving the performance of the board. What about including one of these cards: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01452SP1O? It provides a 2-port SATA III (6Gb/s) controller, hosts a SATA SSD right on the card (no, it doesn't come with one) and supports booting from this card and provides a port for connecting a second SSD or HDD. I haven't tried this card in anything older than a 5 Series board, but it should work in theory...

There are other cards that can provide you with more SATA III interfaces than this. If you want that option, make sure you look for one that says it has (OpROM) firmware to support booting.

...S