Not all IDE/SATA controllers were supported, or at least the modules necessary for their operation were not included for certain reasons. I experienced such in the past. USB storage support is separate from IDE/SATA support, and in most cases should be supported regardless (or at least be made work by repluging the USB device upon detecting Android-x86). Also, some same chipsets appear to have too many different variants and not all are properly supported.
The following phenomena can be observed if the IDE/SATA of your chipset is not properly supported (or lacked modules for them):
- Stuck on Detecting Android-x86..................... (endless) when booting using internal optical drive.
- If Android-x86/RemixOS boots okay with USB, when trying to install using INSTALL=1, only USB drives attached to the device are visible.
It may be better to discuss about what chipset variant the affected devices use in detail, in order to get the necessary modules included/patched. If the particular device can boot a current Linux distro without problems, and can properly see the IDE/SATA drives attached (that is, proper modules for them already existed), chances for it to be supported in the future would be higher.