drive in eSATA enclosure not recognized

[why-not]

Hi,

It's been a few days that I'm struggling without success to have my eSata enclosure to be recognised
by my system. Hope someone can help me. Thanks in advance for your contribution.

Here is my configuration

* GA-K8NS rev 2.0 flashed with the latest BIOS. http://www.gigabyte.fr/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2275
* Sempron64 3100+ socket 754
* WD Caviar SE16 5000AAKS http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=301
* enclosed into an IcyBox SATA -> USB/eSATA http://www.raidsonic.de/en/pages/products/external_cases.php?we_objectID=5150
* bracket SATA 150 internal to eSATA
* Windows XP Pro SP3. driver SATA nforce3 250 installed.

No RAID. boot XP system from an internal IDE drive.
The SATA hardisk is only for data storage.
No loose connection.


* :smile:drive connected internally by SATA is recognized by the BIOS and Windows.
* :smile:drive connected externally through enclosure by USB is recognized by Windows.
* :sad:drive connected externally through enclosure by eSATA is not recognized: neither by the BIOS nor by Windows.


I tried:

* to start with the disk powered on / off.
* with / without a jumper set on position 5-6 on the disk in order to limit at 150Gbs.
* to connect on the both available SATA port.
* to replace eSATA cable.
* I always execute an hardware modification search in the device management tool of XP.

• mobo is SATA 150 handled by an nforce3 250 chipset
• bracket to eSATA is SATA 150
• drive is SATA 300 (with jumper set it can be seen as 150)
• enclosure is SATA 300.

I guess the motherboard is not compbatible with hot plug
since I didnt see any AHCI setting available in BIOS?
but it should still be ok if the drive is powered up on start?
or does it mean if no AHCI feature, no eSATA allowed?

 

[Mercutio]

Is the power arrangement the same for USB as it is for eSATA in your enclosure?
Do you have another system with eSATA that you could try your enclosure on?

 

[Handruin]

You've tried all the combinations I would have suggested. I found success after I changed the jumped to drop the drive to SATA 150. I still couldn't get it to hot plug into my system. I would have to open device manager and force windows to rescan for plug and play devices (like you tried). After I did that, my drive would be discovered via eSATA.

My system is an nForce 570 board (Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4) and I don't think my eSATA was connected to a port with AHCI. I'll have to confirm when I get home. I would expect that if the external drive was powered on before the system that it should work, but I see that it doesn't for you.

It's possible the eSATA chip might be bad in the enclosure...or maybe something is wrong with the bracket that goes eSATA > SATA?

 

[why-not]

Unfortunately I dont have any other available system with eSATA on which I can try and plug the external enclosure.

I doubt the problem comes from the enclosure considering the reputation and different review of icybox. I also have two identical models and both have the same issue when connecting eSATA. Would be too coincidental that both of them are faulty.

The drive enclosure is using the same external power supply for USB as for eSATA.

But since it is my first experience with eSATA things I'm not too sure about my way of proceeding. Thought it would be plug and play but encountering issue makes me think I missed something.
Unless a part is faulty it is more likely to be the new no-name bracket.

Has anyone ever plug an eSATA drive on a GA-K8NS mobo or with a similar nforce 3 250 chipset ?

 

[MaxBurn]

Speaking in broad hostile terms doesn't nforce have problems with SATA just in general? Part of your problem looks to be lack of support for eSATA?

I also encountered some strangeness in my foray into eSATA but this was on motherboards that didn't list it as a feature either (Supermicro C2SBA) but in the end it all worked. In my case turning on removable storage device for those SATA ports worked great but if I didn't have a drive attached it would hang the POST a good 45 seconds or so which I didn't like at all and just wound up ditching it.

 

[Handruin]

Yes, I think you're right that nforce has problems with SATA. I think it was Stereodude who pointed out to me a long time ago that there was issues with even the nForce 570. I was getting strange hangs in my older system when copying larger files to my Samsung 750GB drives. Some of the issues were reduced when I disabled NCQ.

I even have eSATA oddness on my newer P55 motherboard which has a dedicated eSATA port out the back. I have to jump through some hoops mentioned in this thread to get the drive to show up.

 

[Mercutio]

nForce-based systems have some general weirdness with storage, as I recall. My standard practice when I was building nForce-based systems was to never load nVidia's storage drivers, and I recall that there were some data corruption issues with those boards as well.

Not that saying so helps why-not in any meaningful way.

 

[Stereodude]

Speaking in broad hostile terms doesn't nforce have problems with SATA just in general?

I think the issue was only with certain drives. Samsung in particular.

 

[MaxBurn]

I remember something with a specific model of Raptor too, like it wouldn't ever detect them.

Eh, I have only had to deal with one nvidia chipset and that one couldn't even get the USB part right.

 

[ddrueding]

I vaguely recall my GA-K8NS not liking my raptors, only every third or fourth boot, provided I didn't install the drivers.

 

[why-not]

I investigated a little further about this sata->eSata bracket things by bringing back to the shop where I bought it a week ago.
The fellow tried the bracket on his hardware and my drive was not still not detected so he tried another new bracket - same model - and ... same issue.
His (too) quick conclusion was that the issue comes from my enclosure.

But since I got 2 identical enclosures bought at one year interval showing the same issue I cannot see why the defect would be more on the enclosure side rather than the no-name bracket side.
One thing is certain is that is not related with the motherboard.

Since he didnt have any other different eSATA enclosure or any other brand of bracket to try on :tdown:- that could have confirmed any of the hypothesis, I gave up and got my money back.

Now I hope to find out some system with an eSATA port where I can plug the drive into. If drive is still not recognized then for sure the issue is from the enclosures or cables. If recognised then I will get another bracket from some other retailer.

I read many issues about eSATA detection and all have different origins.

One of them is how deep the eSATA cable fits into the slot. On the enclosure side it seems perfectly fitting in. Not so sure about the bracket side even though not loose the contact might still have not been deep enough.

Thanks for your help. I would let you know if anything new comes out about it.