SATA ports can become inoperable with the latest BIOS, here is the fix
Anyone installing Ubuntu on the ASUS Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI motherboard with BIOS 1003 will notice the 8 SATA ports on the board become inoperable as they are not seen by the OS at all. There are various workarounds for this issue which I will detail here.
The problem only affects the 8 SATA ports, M.2_3 and U.2_2 as these connect via the chipset and Asmedia controller. The SATA connectivity via the CPU works as normal but this limits the user to M.2 to SATA convertors from the M.2_1 or M.2_2 slots or a U.2 convertor from the U.2_1 connector (supporting up to 4 SATA devices).
We have found a couple of solutions to this issue. We have a simple solution which entails turning off the BMC function and a more complex solution which will enable full functionality.
1) The Simple solution
It seems Ubuntu is not compatible with the older BMC firmware. The BMC is not necessary for operation of the system so you can flick switch 13 on the plan here to turn it off. As the BMC VGA port is also related, it is better to also operate switch 27 to turn this off too. Make sure the system is powered off before operating the switches:
The switches will look like this photo:
With these switches turned off, the BMC will be disabled so you won’t be able to access it via IPMI
2) The full solution
Update the BMC firmware to version 1.17 and enable SR-IOV SUPPORT setting in the PC BIOS.
Create a usb stick with a dos system and copy the files to update the BMC system firmware version to version 1.70
You can use the rufus program to create the bootable usb stick.
Enter the motherboard bios using the "del" key and choose the "Boot" option and enable "Launch CSM"
Save the settings using the "F10" key and restart
Connect the bootable USB sticks with the DOS installed and the copied firmware update files (these are available for download here: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Socket%20sTRX4/Pro%20WS%20WRX80E-SAGE%20SE%20WIFI/PRO-WS-WRX80E-SAGE-SE-1.17.0.zip or you can find the latest link on the ASUS website) and wait for the workstation to start in DOS.
Enter the folder containing the firmware using the command "CD" and run the file "FLASH1.BAT"
The process will ask you if you want to start the firmware update process, press the "Y" and "Enter" key
Wait for the update process to start and finish (this will take about 10 minutes)
Confirm that the changes were made on the system, restart the workstation and enter the BIOS environment by pressing the "DEL" key, enter the "SERVER MGMT" menu and verify that the firmware version is 1.70
Turn off the workstation, connect the SATA devices, restart, and enter the BIOS environment again.
Select the "ADVANCED" menu and within this menu the option "PCI SUBSYSTEM SETTINGS"
Enable the option "SR-IOV SUPPORT", press "f10" and restart the workstation saving the changes made.
The system can now recognize your SATA devices and install the LINUX distribution you prefer, with full BMC support in the "SERVER MANAGEMENT" environment.
If you have a pre-existing Linux installation and are having this issue due to a BIOS update, you may need to run the following commands:
Update-grub
Update-initramfs
The update commands re-write the GRUB and initramfs config.