I put a new Samsung HD753LJ drive in a Thermaltake Max 4 eSATA enclosure which is plugged to an eSATA PCI controller. If I turn it on before starting up, it is seen in explorer. If I turn it on after the computer is already running, it doesn't show in explorer--in this situation, it is found by Windows XP (get the plug n' play signal and "safely remove hardware"), and it shows in device manager, but in disk management it doesn't show in the top window and in the lower section it shows as "disk 2 dynamic offline" with red circle and white dash (-) through it.

Previously I had a Western Digital external USB, and if I turned it on after the computer was running it was recognized and could be used. I put that on another computer and it works the same on it.

I haven't been able to find any information on this issue. Perhaps it's just the nature of this eSATA setup or the motherboard, I don't know. I don't use the drive frequently but would like to be able to access it on demand. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Jean

since usb and probably firewire devices are plug and play(safely remove?) but sata drives are polled at bootup only, what you are seeing makes sense

sata being hot swappable requires sata power?

Does it show in My Computer?

No, as I said it doesn't show in windows explorer, if powered up after windows has already loaded.

Greetings JeanW

Where I work we do a number of data backups by removing the drives from the computer and hook them up to a usb interface.

There are two parts to hook them up, a powersource and the interface.

If I hook up these drives without the power, the host computer acts as if there is nothing attached to the usb cable. (In Windows or otherwise ) If I apply power to the drive after hooking them in same result. I sometimes can get away just plugging in the little notebook drives without a external or additional power source because the interface cable (usb) has enough power to spin then up.

I have to apply power letting the drive spin up, then and only then plug the usb cable in. This is effective when Windows has loaded. If I leave the drive turned on and connected when booting up to Windows all is well I have success.

So the question becomes, Why are you turning the drive off at all when you shutdown windows? Your not saving that much power and wear and tear may become greater.

Solutions: change the order of things that you do. turn on the external drive first, plug in cable (if not already) then start your computer. Then when you shutdown, turn off the external last. unplug or leave plugged in to your liking.

There is one thing I would like to know though to satisfy my own curiousity , is why did you set up the external drive as a dynamic disk vs a basic disk? Normally dynamic disks are done for spanning and raid applications. You spanning volumes on that drive? Did you set that up on purpose?

I would be curious to know when the drive is up and running as it should (whatever method you use to get there) to let me know if the disk is reporting itself as dynamic as well.

Regards

Kaz

Hi, Kaz. The reason I turn off the eSATA when I shut down Windows is because I don't want it running all the time! There are those who never turn off computers and peripherals, then there's those who always do. I'm of the latter group, since my first computer in 1983, and I've never seen any deleterious effect on any of the equipment. Right now I will be using the external, typically, about 2 1/2 - 3 hours at a time once a week, maybe twice, with occasional unplanned spur-of -the-moment brief uses. I see no need to keep it running continuously.

The eSATA's power supply is plugged.

No, I didn't knowingly configure a dynamic drive--couldn't have since this is the first I've ever heard of it. How that could have happened I don't know. I'm sure that must be an option one would have to go out of the way to select. Maybe I did select it one late night when I was "sleep deprived!" I've used disk management under XP Pro 4 times to format drives in the last couple of years and never recall even seeing that option. Yes, the disk is reported as dynamic when it is up and running and showing in Explorer.

Since your post, I've done a quick read of a couple of references on dynamic disks, and so far I don't see a downside for me. Maybe you can better advise me if you know what I'm doing with the drive. It is one component in my backup/recovery plan. In addition to standard backups and raw data copies, I will use the eSATA to hold images of my system drive plus some redundant archives of important copies. I have a spare internal IDE drive to which I can test restore the images. I'm thinking I will want to be able to take that spare drive with current image and replace a failed system drive, if necessary. I don't plan to boot an OS from the external drive. I don't care, right now, whether this external drive could be moved from one computer to another or installed internally, if that makes a difference.

What do you think? Thanks.

Jean

Greetings JeanW:


Right o' For a work around when done with the esata, initialize the Remove hardware safely, click the one to be removed, unplug it (esata cable) and then power it down. When wanted power up the drive and then plug in the esata cable.

I am also looking at a few other possibilities why you get a problem on starting the drive once Windows is up and running while the sata cord is plugged in. Not getting the result you expected, when you had a different external drive using USB.

This has to do with "what is controling" the sata drive headers vs "what is controling the usb headers"

First note, that one was USB the other is SATA. Dont get the apples and oranges mixed here. Sata Headers can be configured to do mulitple things.

Many motherboards have several sata headers to choose from.

Some headers are dedicated to work as single drive interfaces.

Some have dedicated sata headers made for making Raids. Some to run in a AHCI/SATA mode. Some that need software to work, some that are hardware based no software needed.

Some motherboards will allow you to configure each sata header individually. ie I want sata header 1 and 2 to be a raid, but 3,4,5, 6 to act like IDE native.

This configuration, or choice is usually done in the Bios.

A possible scenaro:

If you happen to put that external sata on one of the headers that was dedicated (since you may had many to choose from) for Raid, Windows may have been "told" by the bios that it should be dynamic when it gets setup and formatted.

I have heard of drives that have come from a raid setup that were recycled but not properly erased where it would report its self as dynamic but really was a basic disk when put into another machine.

Have a read from your motherboard manual and see if there is such a setup or choice on your computer.

It may be just a matter of putting the sata internal cables on a different set of sata headers.

Dont go changing any bios setting, without further research in changing Drive modes, Ie Native, AHCI, Raid on the sata headers. I would not have you make your OS non bootable.

The bios settings might be the reason you cant start the disk after windows is up and get it recognized though. The key is being allowed to do a "Hot swap" and not have to boot the os again to make it work.



About leaving your external as a Dynamic drive, Not having set a external to this disk type personally, I can only give you theory.
Theory is that if you move that drive to another Operating system that does not support dynamic drives you can not read it. Also it can not be read in DOS as well. Some utilites or recovery programs like acronis true image.

Regards

Kaz.

OK, I failed to mention another quirk: the "safely remove hardware" does not work. Every time I try it I get "the device samsung...cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later." Always does it, though the drive hasn't even been reading/writing at all during the session. I just power it down.

How would I have "put that external sata on one of the headers that was dedicated (since you may had many to choose from) for Raid?" Where did I choose that, as I'm certain I wasn't faced with such a choice which would have been foreign to me and would have caught my attention.

Re:

Have a read from your motherboard manual and see if there is such a setup or choice on your computer.

It may be just a matter of putting the sata internal cables on a different set of sata headers.

There's no manual. There's no sata headers on the mobo, to my knowledge. The drive is connected to a PCI controller card.

What kind of bios settings would I be looking for that could make the drive hot swappable?

Of course, this is not a major issue, as I can simply turn on the eSATA and reboot; it's just one of those annoyances for which I was hoping there would be a simple solution.

BTW, Samsung's documentation says:

"In some rare case SATA 1.5Gv/s hosts can not establish SATA interface connection with SATA 3.0Gb/s devices due to interface protocol issues. In this case you should switch your drive to SATA 1.5Gb/s speed with a software which we are providing via www.samsunghdd.com."

Now, you may recall from an earlier exchange we had that my PCI sata controller is capable of only 1.5GB. While a connection with the Samsung SATA 3.0 obviously has been established, I wonder if this issue could also cause the behavior I'm seeing? Just a thought.

Thanks for your time, Kaz. If you come up with anything I'll look forward to hearing more.

Jean

Greetings JeanW

Let me start from clean here. Was looking at my posts previous here. I went from talking about usb then sata. No doubt I confused the issue. Call it a senior moment.

I do truely want to say that usb external drives work different from esata drives. It still is about the controllers. It is still about being able to hot swap without taking down the OS.

I assumed from a previous discussion you just used a regular blanking plate with a esata connector and connected the internal cable to a availible sata header off the motherboard. I completely zoned that you went ahead and did a pci controler. Thusly the big expose' on sata header choices. So thats off the table as well.
Must have been something in the coffee.....

This does bring us back to what the controler (the added in one) is doing with the drives. There may be a way of configuring it yet to how it handles the drives connected to it. It is still going to be about AHCI mode.

I just dont know at this moment how.

Sorry for the confusion, embarassed myself pretty bad here. Forgiveness?

Regards
Kaz.

esata can't hotswap

the esata should be approached just like an internal sata drive, all you have done is entend the sata cable and switched over to pata power(no hot swapping)

the pci controller chipset(sata 1) would usually just not see the sata 2 hard drive if that was the problem

you can look for jumper blocks on the drive, the settings are hard to find

there are no parallels to usb here that I can see

This post has been edited by DaChew: Mar 31 2008, 06:20 AM

Kaz,

Forgiven! Actually, I'm just glad if it was your senior moment, not mine.

DaChew,

Mind you, I know just enough about this to be dangerous, but I read that esata is hot-swappable: http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

I would have thought I wouldn't be seeing the "safely remove" option at all unless the esata was hot-swap capable.

Would you think my issue is probably due to lack of mobo support?

What kind of jumper blocks would I be looking for? You're not talking about the master/slave jumpers are you?

Thanks for any suggestions you can think of.

Jean

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-repli...cfm/545442.html

make sure you get to the bottom of the page when skimming this

Greetings all,

I still stand that you can hot swap or hot plug esata's

It depends on if the controler can support it. They must support AHCI.

A google search of "Hot swap Esata" brings up lots of information that it can.

I have found some software even that will add a hotswap icon to the remove hardware safely icon to facilitate this, specific to Silicon Image controlers. So it is not confusing to the user about what is being removed.

Here is a link to a Silicon Image Knowlege base Silicon Image knowlege base

So its back to you JeanW to see if your controler supports this.

Regards.

Kaz.

This post has been edited by kazzoo: Mar 31 2008, 02:09 PM

I, too, found some "safely remove" software that says it works for sata: http://safelyremove.com/index.html. Of course, whether it would help me or not I don't know.

My original question was why Windows Explorer doesn't see my eSATA when I turn it on after having already started Windows. Like I said, Widows' safely remove utility "sees" the external drive, but it still doesn't work to stop it. But, really, that is not my main concern. I want to be able, on demand, to power up the eSATA in the middle of Windows and use it. It's not an issue that I might not be able to turn it off until I shut down windows, although I have done so more than once with no known loss of data or ill effect. I can always just power it down after shutting down the pc.

As for hot swappable or not, if mine is or can be made so, does that mean I would then be able to see/use the drive if I power it up after already booting into Windows? As I said, Windows even now acknowledges when I power it up, with the audible sound and the appearance of the safely remove icon. The drive letter just doesn't appear in windows explorer.

It may be a matter of the Promise SATA300 TX2 Plus not supporting hot swapping. It's documentation doesn't claim to (though none of the other controllers I compared did either, as I recall). And Promise's online specifications or knowledge base make no mention of it. I could register and ask if it supports hot swapping. For me, though, it's pretty much moot, as that knowledge alone is not going to change anything to help me resolve my issue.

Anyway, thanks to all for your input.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16816102061

I thought you had an esata card?

I don't think I ever said I did. I have a the promise PCI controller with a connection to a PCI bracket similar to this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16812226003

and that connected to the esata enclosure.