how do I enable SATA hotplugging in my PC?

J

jarthel

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 24, 2001
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I have a Intel G31-based motherboard. In the bios, I have setup the onboard sATA (SATA ports provided by the G31 chipset) to "Enhance". According to the manual, this mean the PATA port (there is 1 provided by the chipset) is disabled and SATA ports work in "SATA" mode.

I have using a ESATA bracket which are plugged into free SATA ports provided by the chipset. I plugged in my drive to this bracket. I plugged the data cable first and then the power cable. Well, my PC doesn't recognize the HDD. I plugged the power cable first but still no luck. I looked at device manager and I cannot see the ESATA drive.

This is on a newly installed Vista machine.

Any suggestions/recommendations?

thank you :)
 
It's not as effortless as USB.

When in device manager, you have to select your computer name at the top of the tree and then push the button to re-scan for hardware devices.
 
Enable ACHI in BIOS.

This will render your current Windows install unbootable, however, as it will BSoD instantly. As you said, it is a new install, so it may be easier to simply enable AHCI and reinstall Windows with the setting on; the setup will automatically recognize this and have AHCI drivers pre-installed.

After that, hotswap should work perfectly.
 
fyi:

I've had strange experiences with SATA hotplugging on XP.
(X38 mobo, ICH9R chipset with AHCI disabled throughout the following... ie I have NEVER used my PC with AHCI enabled, the drivers are not installed and it is not selected in the BIOS)

It used to work fine like this, I could plug a drive onto SATA/ESATA and it would immediately be picked up and assigned a drive letter (if partitions existed already).
I did not have to do as either Menelmarar or Syntax Error suggested, it was fully automatic and did not require AHCI.

Now, something has broken and new drives are no longer detected until reboot.
My PC functions as expected in every regard, just this one thing has changed.
I've yet to solve what happened as it doesnt bother me.

So hotplugging should just work but can have issues.
 
Nenu, that is some strange behavior because Hot Swapping IS an AHCI function, and not a SATA function. I have a feeling that Windows installed some drivers that were kinda working but not fully implemented. During some reboot, Windows may have detected the mismatch and corrected itself.

IMHO, if your system is Hot Swapping without AHCI enabled, you are risking data corruption.

Don
 
I wouldn't risk it without AHCI...
I gotten way to many deleted Partitions by playing around like this.
...and file recovey from >1TB volumes is not something I would like to do. :)
 
Menelmarar said:
It's not as effortless as USB.

When in device manager, you have to select your computer name at the top of the tree and then push the button to re-scan for hardware devices.
Click to expand...

did that already when I was in device manager.
 
Syntax Error said:
Enable ACHI in BIOS.

This will render your current Windows install unbootable, however, as it will BSoD instantly. As you said, it is a new install, so it may be easier to simply enable AHCI and reinstall Windows with the setting on; the setup will automatically recognize this and have AHCI drivers pre-installed.

After that, hotswap should work perfectly.
Click to expand...

There is no "AHCI" setting. Looking at the manual, "Enhanced" setting (SATA mode) would hopefully be equivalent to AHCI.

ps. Vista was installed with the setting set to "Enhanced".
 
jarthel said:
There is no "AHCI" setting. Looking at the manual, "Enhanced" setting (SATA mode) would hopefully be equivalent to AHCI.

ps. Vista was installed with the setting set to "Enhanced".
Click to expand...

What is the exact model number of your motherboard?

AHCI is not universally supported in the ICH7 series. Unless you have the ICH7R, you may be SOL.

From Intel Data Sheet.

SATA Swap Bay Support
Dynamic Hot-Plug (e.g., surprise removal) is not supported by the SATA host controller
without special support from AHCI and the proper board hardware. However, the ICH7
does provide for basic SATA swap bay support using the PSC register configuration bits
and power management flows. A device can be powered down by software and the port
can then be disabled, allowing removal and insertion of a new device.
Note: This SATA swap bay operation requires board hardware (implementation specific),
BIOS, and operating system support.

Link

Don
 
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