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Author Topic: ESATA drive recognition  (Read 6940 times)

Kirk Gittings

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ESATA drive recognition
« on: March 03, 2010, 01:11:57 pm »

Not a big deal-just an annoyance really, but it really slows me down when work is hot and heavy.

When I plug in an external USB drive my computer recognizes it immediately. When I plug in an external ESATA drive it won't recognize it unless I reboot the computer. This is only a problem with my new Vista computer and was not a problem on my older Windows XP machine. The drivers for the ESATA ports and drives have been updated.
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Jeremy Payne

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2010, 01:55:14 pm »

Quote from: Kirk Gittings
Not a big deal-just an annoyance really, but it really slows me down when work is hot and heavy.

When I plug in an external USB drive my computer recognizes it immediately. When I plug in an external ESATA drive it won't recognize it unless I reboot the computer. This is only a problem with my new Vista computer and was not a problem on my older Windows XP machine. The drivers for the ESATA ports and drives have been updated.
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My eSata drive has two modes - one "plug in play" mode where it can be plugged and unplugged with abandon and another where it needs to be "ejected" to be removed.

The default is actually the latter - and supposedly gives better performance that way.  

Could be something like that.
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DarkPenguin

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2010, 02:07:20 pm »

Quote from: Jeremy Payne
The default is actually the latter - and supposedly gives better performance that way.

If the drive cannot be suddenly unplugged windows will happily cache writes to it because it knows that data will eventually make it to the drive.  If the drive can be suddenly unplugged windows cannot guarantee the data will make it to the drive so it will not cache writes.  It is a speed versus data integrity thing.  I'd be a little surprised if read times varied much.
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Kirk Gittings

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2010, 02:26:39 pm »

I'm not aware of any of my ESATA drives having different modes like plug-and-play. Looking...........I can't find any such "modes".
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DarkPenguin

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2010, 02:35:02 pm »

Not sure if these terms have changed under Win7.

Does it show up under disk management?
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Farmer

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2010, 02:58:30 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
Not sure if these terms have changed under Win7.

Does it show up under disk management?

You need AHCI enabled for your SATA controller.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host...oller_Interface

With AHCI active (usually a BIOS setting) you can hot plug eSATA drives which makes them behave similarly to USB external drives.  You should always use the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" function in Windows to remove an eSATA drive whilst the computer running.
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Kirk Gittings

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2010, 03:28:31 pm »

Quote from: Farmer
You need AHCI enabled for your SATA controller.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host...oller_Interface

With AHCI active (usually a BIOS setting) you can hot plug eSATA drives which makes them behave similarly to USB external drives.  You should always use the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" function in Windows to remove an eSATA drive whilst the computer running.

Thanks, Following that through to the Windows links.....it appears that you have to enable the RAID controller but you cannot enable that AFTER the OS has already been installed?

BIOS
« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 03:29:19 pm by Kirk Gittings »
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Farmer

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2010, 11:37:24 pm »

Quote from: Kirk Gittings
Thanks, Following that through to the Windows links.....it appears that you have to enable the RAID controller but you cannot enable that AFTER the OS has already been installed?

BIOS

Most BIOS will have 3 options if they have ACHI capacity.  You'll have SATA/RAID/AHCI.  Choosing AHCI will *not* cause an issue with a single drive relationship, it would only be an issue if you already have a RAID setup.

So if you have a controller just set to SATA, you can change it to AHCI without issue (I've done many times).

Of course, the usual caveat applies - I can't guarantee you won't do irrecoverable damage by changing your BIOS settings!

What you may need to do is check which controller your drive is connected to.  Many mainboards have two or more distinct controllers and AHCI may only be available on one of them.  Your mainboard manual should give you more information if you can't divine it from the BIOS options.
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Thomas Krüger

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2010, 05:01:10 am »

I'm using the donationware HotSwap! from Kazuyuki Nakayama to attach eSata drives through a Sharkoon SATA QuickPort PRO device directly on my older motherboard:
http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm
« Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 05:03:18 am by ThomasK »
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Kirk Gittings

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2010, 12:51:15 am »

I think I'm going to try one of the hot swap enabled ESATA control cards like:
New Egg
Thoughts?
« Last Edit: March 06, 2010, 12:51:40 am by Kirk Gittings »
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nemophoto

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2010, 04:41:23 pm »

Kirk, you're the right track, re: a new controller. I find, though, it's often a motherboard issue. Two computers ago, I ran Win XP , then Vista on an Asus motherboard. No problems plugging/unplugging the drive. Then I rebuilt my computer with an MSI board, and it NEVER recognized the eSATA drives unless I rebooted, no mater what. I now have a new computer running Win 7 x64 with a Gigabyte board. Not only do I have two eSATA connectors (actually 4 including the 6GB/sec connectors) built in, but am using my older eSATA card. Usually, I have no problems with the built in connectors. Occasionally, the ones on the card require I go to device manager, click on hard drives, and have the computer look for new hardware. This always fixes the connection.

So, you might also try turning on your eSATA drives and going to the Device Manager to try to get the computer to connect as I mentioned above.

Nemo
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dsp

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #11 on: March 17, 2010, 05:50:08 pm »

Quote from: Farmer
So if you have a controller just set to SATA, you can change it to AHCI without issue (I've done many times).

Of course, the usual caveat applies - I can't guarantee you won't do irrecoverable damage by changing your BIOS settings!


If you installed Windows 7/Vista with the BIOS set to SATA or EIDE mode, it usually disables the Windows AHCI driver, so if you enable AHCI in BIOS, windows may not boot.  If this happens it is an easy fix.  Just set the BIOS back to the original control setting, boot up Windows, and then follow these instructions:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Shutdown, change bios to AHCI, and you are all set.  Before I did this my external ESATA drive would only be detected if I went through disk management and drives, and scanned for new hardware.  Now it automatically detected/swappable.  You may see that all your drives are then listed under the eject hardware list - windows won't let you eject the system or scratch drives, so don't worry about screwing up your system.

best regards, Darcy
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Alan Goldhammer

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ESATA drive recognition
« Reply #12 on: March 17, 2010, 05:56:38 pm »

Quote from: Kirk Gittings
Not a big deal-just an annoyance really, but it really slows me down when work is hot and heavy.

When I plug in an external USB drive my computer recognizes it immediately. When I plug in an external ESATA drive it won't recognize it unless I reboot the computer. This is only a problem with my new Vista computer and was not a problem on my older Windows XP machine. The drivers for the ESATA ports and drives have been updated.
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I have a brand new Win 7 x64 machine and it is the same for me.  Furthermore, once you have booted, the drive is permanently on until the machine is powered down; different from a USB connection.  Since I only use the drive for a weekly backup, I only plug the power cord in when I start it up on Saturday AM.  It's a mild pain in the rear end.  Since I didn't build the machine myself, I'm not about to go in and fool around with a BIOS setting.
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