I've got a HDD fantec external enclosure with esata II port and its own power supply. I've bought an esata-sata cable to connect this enclosure to one of my mobo's 6 sata III ports.
Firstly I connected the fantec power supply, then its esata-sata cable and then I've started an ubuntu live session. After that I switched on the enclosure but nothing happened: the enclosure's led remained switched off and no external device icon appeared on ubuntu desktop. I switched off the enclosure, removed the esata-sata cable and connected the enclosure via an usb cable, then switched the enclosure on and it worked: its led switched on and the device icon appeared on the desktop.

I supposed the brand new esata-sata cable failed but I checked it by a tester (@ ohm scale) and verified there was a link between some pins of the esata and sata plugs. So I supposed the enclosure's esata port didn't work properly and I tested it and verified there was a link between some esata's pins and the pins connected to the HDD. I'm not skilled but I guess both the cable and the enclosure work fine.

That said, can you tell me why my mobo is not able to load an external device, like my enclosure, via its sata ports?
Moreover I saw that nothing was listed in sata port list within bios environment when I started the bios with the enclosure connected via esata-sata cable. Should I modify something in bios to make it "see" a esata-sata cable as a common sata-sata inner cable?