No SATA drive after booting into Windows (BootCamp 5.0)
One of my DVD burners has failed in one of my 2008 Apple Mac Pro's. I pulled the drive out (it was PATA/IDE) and replaced with a new LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray Burner. I had to pull the fan out (temporarily) and run a new 24" SATA cable (with right-angle connector) from one of the two extra SATA ports (on the motherboard) to the new actual SATA drive, and also install a MOLEX to SATA power connector.
I managed to get the drive installed (and working). I now at least have a Blu-Ray burner in my 2008 Apple Mac Pro (with OS X 10.8.3 Mountain Lion).
The problem seems to be with when I boot directly into Windows 8. When I boot into Windows 8, the two ports on the motherboard are disabled and the latest BootCamp 5.0 drivers don't seem to support the two SATA ports on the motherboard (they seem to be disabled). So when I boot directly into Windows, my LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray drive disappears.
I really wish Apple would have just "done things right" from the very beginning and took the time to write decent BootCamp 5.0 drivers that supported the two SATA ports on the motherboard, so that users who need to replace their old/dying/aging PATA drives could easily replace them with SATA drives and use the two SATA ports on the motherboard.
Also it would have been nice if Apple would have taken the time to write good BootCamp 5 drivers (for Windows 8) that support booting from the two SATA ports on the 2008 Apple Mac Pro motherboard.
I've heard of many people that have tried installing RAID Controller Cards (from OWC) in their 2008 Apple Mac Pro to upgrade their four hard drive caddys from SATA II (3Gbps) to SATA III (6Gbps) but unfortunately the RAID Controller Cards don't seem to be bootable and the only option is to install a fifth (bootable) hard drive into the Apple Mac Pro and this is normally done by installing a bootable SSD drive into one of the DVD-drive bays. Unfortunately if you use a SATA SSD drive (which most SSD's are SATA) and then use one of the two SATA ports on the motherboard to connect it, then you go back to having the problem of not having a boot drive when you boot directly into Windows 8 (since there are no BootCamp 5 drivers for the 2008 Apple Mac Pro that support the two SATA ports on the 2008 Apple Mac Pro motherboard).
This seems to be a never-ending problem, and we have twelve 2008 Apple Mac Pro's (along with an office full of 2008/2009/2010/2013 Apple Mac Pro's) and we're getting extremely frustrated with Apple's lack of support in BootCamp 5.0 drivers for the 2008 Apple Mac Pro (and the two SATA ports on the mainboard).
Please fix this problem, and please update the BootCamp 5.0/5.1 drivers (for 2008 Apple Mac Pro users) and please support the two SATA ports on the Apple Mac Pro mainboard, and please make those two SATA ports on the motherboard bootable and usable in both Microsoft Windows 8 and in OS X 10.8.3 Mountain Lion. Please update the BootCamp 5.0 drivers to support the two onboard SATA ports in Windows 8 (so that my Blu-Ray burner is viewable/usable in Windows 8).
Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)