Hot-swap software?

[DejaWiz]

Hey [H],

Have a case with a built in hot swap bay (Thermaltake Armor A60) and was wondering if there was any free software that integrates into Windows that give the option to "eject", much in the same manner of a USB flash drive.

Anything like that out there?

 

[David_CAN]

You don't need special software. While there are a few reasons why the drive might not be showing up (motherboard chipset doesn't support hot swap, drive already set for quick removal) the most likely is that the driver has told Windows the SATA port you are using is "internal".

Drives plugged into "internal" ports don't show up in the Windows eject list anymore, this prevents the annoyance of always seeing every SATA drive including the boot drive in the eject list.

Changing the config to report the port as external will vary depending on driver. I would start in the BIOS and see if you have an enable hot swap option for each port. While you're there make sure the port is not operating in legacy IDE mode (you need AHCI). If your BIOS doesn't let you modify it from there it will likely involve some ugly registry edits - you'll probably need to know what motherboard chipset you have if you want to avoid screwing up your system.

 

[madrebel]

in windows 7 do:

windows key + pause break, click device manager, expand disk drives, right click the drive in question, click policies tab.

here, if you want to remove a drive at anytime change the policy to quick removal.

otherwise, right click the safely remove hardware and eject media icon in the system tray, this will display your hard drives, click the one you want to disconnect.

 

[DejaWiz]

Sorry, should have clarified. It's an Asus P8Z68-V LE with a 2500K, mother board set to AHCI SATA mode with hot swap enabled.

Have to go into the Intel RST program and refresh for it to detect the drive inserted into the hot-swap bay.