eSATA not Hot Swappable?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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Is eSATA not hot swappable as I had thought?

I have a new external enclosure, my first eSATA enclosure. I was expecting to be able to plug it in once booted and have it show up, like a would a USB drive, but that's not happening.

Unless its plugged in and on during POST and detected by the bios the drive never shows up.

Is this a limitation to eSATA or am I doing something wrong?

If it should work, then I'd appreciate any suggestions on what I am doing wrong.

Much Appreciated,
Matt
 
Is your motherboard SATA mode set to IDE or AHCI? You need AHCI enabled in order to use the hot-swap feature. If you installed the OS in IDE mode, you may have to reformat and reinstall the OS if you enable AHCI. However, there are hacks around this. Just can't think of ones off the top of my head.
 
Danny Bui said:
Is your motherboard SATA mode set to IDE or AHCI? You need AHCI enabled in order to use the hot-swap feature. If you installed the OS in IDE mode, you may have to reformat and reinstall the OS if you enable AHCI. However, there are hacks around this. Just can't think of ones off the top of my head.
Click to expand...

Excellent thank you. You hit the nail right on the head.


I found the workaround. For windows 7 it is as follows (if anyone else needs it):

- run regedit.
- go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Msahci
- right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
- In the Value data box, change the number from 3 to 0, and then click OK.
- exit the registry editor.

Reboot the machine, windows 7 will detect all your drives and reinstall drivers for them. After another reboot it will be all set.
 
My older system wouldn't find the eSATA automatically, but if I went into device manager and had it look for new hardware, it would find it that way, if that helps anyone else.
 
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