MaxTheFast wrote:
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?

ESATA has a bus power option. Two pins off to the side of
the connector ("ears") are placed on motherboards that
provide power. Then a cable with bus-power pins on it,
would pass bus power to a drive.

You would want to use a "plain" ESATA cable with no ears
on it, if the enclosure has its own AC power.

It's not clear whether sataio.org ever standardized
this connector, and the options it has. There is
even a motherboard connector, with ESATA and USB pins
on the same connector, as a variant. The intention being,
that a USB cable can go into that particular flavor of
ESATA connector. Making it a "combo port", serving ESATA
or USB function, depending on cable used.

Paul