Total newbie, needs lots of help

I'm learning as I go so please bear with me.

I have the following setup:

Raspberry Pi 4

Geekworm x825 Expansion board for SSD (SSD is NOT for boot, just storage)

Geekworm x735 Power management board

SSD drive

I made a LibreELEC installation microSD card, installed LibreELEC no problem. It boots up and launches Kodi. Worth mentioning: I didn't select "enable SSH" at setup, but I have enabled it after the fact.

Problem 1: When I go to storage, it doesn't list my SSD, it's not detected. This drive works, I set it up with my Windows PC. I researched online, but almost everyone with a similar issue is connected via USB instead of an expansion board, so their solutions didn't apply to me. I have no idea where to even begin.

Problem 2: I can't access the terminal. I'm trying to use PuTTY. The IP Address is correct. When I type in "pi" as the default username, I get the message:

"No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey,keyboard-interactive)"

In the past I have never had to mess with keys, I just logged with username: pi, password: raspberry, so this part is totally uncharted territory. I used PuTTYGen to make a key, I went to SSH>Auth to point PuTTY to the key location and it just tells me "Can't use key file." Researching online I've seen that people are generating SSH-2 key files but I only have the option to generate an SSH-1 key file in PuTTYGen. No idea if that matters, just thought it's worth mentioning.

Every solution I've found online just leads me to a new dead end. I feel like I'm missing something here. Can you guys please help walk me through this?

Thank you

Quote from Klojum

Enabling SSH is a setting in the LibreELEC Settings Add-on. There is no need for SSH-keys just yet, unless you really want to.

Once you are in a SSH session, type:

Code

blkid | pastebinit
mount | pastebinit
dmesg | pastebinit

and provide the generated URL for each command. (Make sure there is an Internet connection)

But I can't get into an SSH session because of the "No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey,keyboard-interactive)" error.

Quote from DarrenHill

And the default SSH login credentials are root/libreelec, not pi/raspberry.

The password can also be changed under the configuration addon.

I get the exact same result with "root" as the username.

Quote from Klojum

One drastic way is to reinstall/rewrite LibreELEC onto your SDcard, start from scratch, and enable SSH via the welcome wizard. It only takes 1-2 minutes. Then you should be able to SSH right in, instead of dragging on for 12 hours now with the current situation.

Is there a difference between enabling SSH via the welcome wizard vs. enabling it after the fact? I'm happy to reinstall, just want to learn.

Quote from Klojum

One drastic way is to reinstall/rewrite LibreELEC onto your SDcard, start from scratch, and enable SSH via the welcome wizard. It only takes 1-2 minutes. Then you should be able to SSH right in, instead of dragging on for 12 hours now with the current situation.

OK, reinstalling and selecting SSH worked like a charm.

So my SSD is not being detected. Where can I start on that?