eSata issues - just plain won't work

[enon8727]

Ok, so it has to be me. I can't find anyone else that's had trouble with eSata like this. This sounds dumb, but I've been trying to use it off and on for the past 6 months, first with XP, now with 7, and it just plain doesn't work. Is it supposed to be like USB - plug it in, Windows makes a sound and you're good to go? I literally plug it in, turn on my external HD and nothing happens....ever. I can't find any settings to enable in BIOS, the drive works fine with USB, I've even tried it with another PC and still no luck. Is there a magical incantation that I missed the memo on?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Ian

 

[vailr]

What motherboard?
The eSATA port should be configured for AHCI in the bios setup.
Otherwise, must be connected at system boot-up, in order to be recognized in the O.S.

 

[The Master]

I would try a sata2 to e-sata cable.. what I use for my built-in e-sata port on my hp laptop (works fine by the way)

But I did buy this "thing" off ebay that was e-sata or usb to ide and I tried it on this laptop and it refused to work..

Technically speaking I would also give the hard drive power first.. and up to 5-10 seconds to spin up/detect..

 

[corkyg]

I use eSATA in XP, Vista, and Win 7 - no problems. But, it comes from adedicated eSATA port, not an internal SATA extenstion. My laptop does not have one so I use a PC Express card. That is the one on the right . . .

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Corky-G/eSATAlap.jpg

It is PnP and hot pluggable.

 

[hclarkjr]

Ok, so it has to be me. I can't find anyone else that's had trouble with eSata like this. This sounds dumb, but I've been trying to use it off and on for the past 6 months, first with XP, now with 7, and it just plain doesn't work. Is it supposed to be like USB - plug it in, Windows makes a sound and you're good to go? I literally plug it in, turn on my external HD and nothing happens....ever. I can't find any settings to enable in BIOS, the drive works fine with USB, I've even tried it with another PC and still no luck. Is there a magical incantation that I missed the memo on?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Ian

are you using an add in card for esata? on the motherboard?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

I've found on several occasions that where the esata cable plugs in to the either the device or the controlling port, there is a poor connection. When using a PCIe card, I've solved this issue by shaving away a couple mm's on the casing of the cable, so it doesn't abut the input port of the card.

 

[corkyg]

Flipped Gazelle reminded me of an incident a few months ago. My eSATA drive was not always seen. I changed eSATA cables and it solved the problem.

 

[enon8727]

Hmm, Well my motherboard is an MSI K9A2 Platinum and I've used both its on-board eSata ports to no avail (not add-on card), tried a different cable (although it's the same brand/type as the first one), there's no setting in BIOS for the eSata ports, period (much less a place to change it to AHCI), and the only thing that produced something out of the norm at all was having the drive plugged in and powered on when rebooting the machine. However, the only thing this did was cause Windows to freeze right after I put in my password to log on. It stayed frozen for about 3-4 minutes until I powered the drive off, then after about 5 seconds, it resumed the log-in process. I'm stumped.

So if/when this works, is it going to go through the few-second drive installation process that USB drives normally go through, or is it just going to pop up in My Computer like an internal drive?

Also, I should note that I'm using Windows 7 RC Build 7100 - not the full release. Could that be an issue?

 

[corkyg]

"Also, I should note that I'm using Windows 7 RC Build 7100 - not the full release. Could that be an issue? "

Possibly. Why are you still using that?

 

[enon8727]

Ha, I guess because I just got everything finally running solid as far as my PC goes and scared to upgrade....especially because I'd be going about it the bit torrent way...no way I'm paying hundreds of dollars for Windows.

 

[Horsepower]

I bought an eSata mybook hoping to use it for W7 backup. I could not get it to work. I bought a cheap eSata external enclosure and put a sata drive inside and it worked as designed. WD firmware was the problem. FYI It needs to be powered and plugged in before booting (in my case)

 

[corkyg]

"FYI It needs to be powered and plugged in before booting (in my case)"

I would say that would be true in any case. Good find on WD.

 

[13Gigatons]

Here's a utility that might help: http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

 

[vailr]

1. Check that you have the latest bios version:
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=bios&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1332
2. Double-check the bios for an AHCI setting. I'm more familiar with Intel boards, but AHCI should be an option in the bios setup for eSATA ports. Search the board manual's electronic .pdf version for "AHCI".
3. Do a complete fresh install of the final release version of Windows 7.

 

[smccartin]

My problem is similar, msi nf750-g55 full version of win 7 ultimate. All drivers are loaded that I know of. Star tech drive dock only works on usb, won't on esata. I started hunting for ahci in bios, finally found it under the raid setup in the bios, if I enable it win 7 bsod's at boot, tried running the boot fixer which ran for a good 30 minutes only to bsod again. I had to put raid mode back to ide to start the machine again. I have adaware running for a antivirus and malware it started whining about a errror something that's part of it not running when I got it to boot again.

Am I going to be forced to reload 7 with that ahci enabled? This is stupid...guess I start calling msi sounds like a bios issue they need to fix or maybe a win 7 problem too.

 

[13Gigatons]

My problem is similar, msi nf750-g55 full version of win 7 ultimate. All drivers are loaded that I know of. Star tech drive dock only works on usb, won't on esata. I started hunting for ahci in bios, finally found it under the raid setup in the bios, if I enable it win 7 bsod's at boot, tried running the boot fixer which ran for a good 30 minutes only to bsod again. I had to put raid mode back to ide to start the machine again. I have adaware running for a antivirus and malware it started whining about a errror something that's part of it not running when I got it to boot again.

Am I going to be forced to reload 7 with that ahci enabled? This is stupid...guess I start calling msi sounds like a bios issue they need to fix or maybe a win 7 problem too.

Try this:

1. Startup "Regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit"
7. Reboot Rig and enter BIOS

In your BIOS change SATA Mode to AHCI from IDE.

You now boot into windows 7, the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. One more reboot for good measure.

Hot plugging should work now if the motherboard has it.

 

[smccartin]

Try this:

1. Startup "Regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit"
7. Reboot Rig and enter BIOS

In your BIOS change SATA Mode to AHCI from IDE.

You now boot into windows 7, the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. One more reboot for good measure.

Hot plugging should work now if the motherboard has it.

That's the hard way to do it, microsoft has a "fix it" utility, I found it googling

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

Run it voila.

In the case of my motherboard the ahci stuff is in the raid section for whatever reason I only found it by clicking through everything. Now that that the ahci driver is loaded in 7 it works perfectly---yeah! Thanks folks you gave me the hint I needed. Would like to know why it bsod's instead of just loading the dumb driver. Is there a place I can upload the fix it so everyone can find it?