Plug and Play eSATA

[Justintoxicated]

Hi I recently upgraded form a DFI UT NF4 MB to a DFI LT x48 Cipset board.

I noticed that my eSata drives are no longer detected when I turn them on like they were on the NF4 MB. Now I have to restart the computer for the drive to be recognized. I can't find any setting in the bios that would affect this? Surely this board being 3 years newer and way more expensive should detect these drives?

I think I may have had a program installed on the old board that made the hard drives appear as Plug and play devices just like the USB drives.

I gotta get this figured out because I have my externals on a digital timer synchronized to backup software on the PC to do weekly backups. As of right now I can't do backups in this manner.

 

[Syntax Error]

I believe you would have to use an add-on eSATA card that has a chipset (usually Silicon Image) that allows for hot-swapping with some software, or you'd have to turn on AHCI in your BIOS to connect eSATA drives (through a SATA to eSATA bracket) for hot swappability.

 

[Justintoxicated]

Ill check the bios for AHCI but that really blowS. My 3 year old NF4 MB > Intel Chipset...These boards and Processors are all hype.... This is the worst PC I have built for the cost over the years. I have to buy a card just for hotswapping thats totaly LAME.

I'm uisng an Sata to rear panel eSata converter already...Can't even backup my drives without restarting my computer with stupid crappy intel chipset = FAIL. And to think it is twice as expensive as expensive as my old board but does not keep up with 3 year old tech. I feel like I have downgraded my PC other than sporting a fancy new Quadcore that can't be pushed over 3200MHZ on water.

 

[Syntax Error]

It's not really the chipset's fault, you just go into BIOS and turn on AHCI, but that'll complicate things on your OS installation, as booting into your OS with AHCI without the proper drivers installed will BSOD your system. If you don't want to mess with that, the PCI eSATA cards will be your only alternative, and they don't cost that much.

If you want to avoid these headaches, your external should have USB. You'll suffer a performance hit, yes, but at least you can turn it on and off at will.

Both NVIDIA and Intel does this, though I'm a bit partial towards Intel in terms of chipset, however.

 

[Justintoxicated]

Yea it would not post with AHCI enabled, but I got it working!
Proprs to Karateo on XS for saving me from another un-necessary re-format!

http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/how-to-enable-ahci-without-reformating/

I take what I said about crapy intel chipset back I but man thats stupid they expect you to re-install vista its very easy to overlook when putting together a new PC.

USb is way to slow to backup over a TB of data weekly.

 

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Huh.

Let me see; I've a Gigabyte EX38-DS5 (Yeah, it's a X38 (that's €15 cheaper then a X48 (X48 = X38 except for the number and price))) and just bought a Western Digital My Book Home Editition 1TB with eSata.

I plug the powesupply in, I plug the eSata cable in and "Tadaa!"; I've got a whopping ~930 GB drive added in Windows Explorer.

The SATA ports are set to RAID, no idea if that has to do anything with it.

The NF4 works fine with hotplugging SATA drives yeah. I was angry too that my P5B Deluxe Wifi/AP didn't accept hotswapping SATA drives, but with my Gigabyte X38 bord it's fine. (Well, just as long as you don't make it too crazy with bad discs / unformatted discs / RAID member discs etc.)

Btw, I had that same RAID setting and array on my P5B. I could take it to the Gigabyte X38 bord without any problem! Wich was quite nice, since I didn't have anyting to get the data of the array (P5B death) and I had no backup.