Esata & Ext Drives

[constructor]

Have decided that that I need to investigate this ....so

Bought a few ext usb/Esata cases and some sataII drives plus some Akasa Sata backplates.

Test machines are various MSI K9mmv and GM? AMD2 mobos running Sata HDDs.
Put the backplates in & connected to SATA on mobo.
Rigged up the Ext Conn with the SATA in the cases
Set the boxes to Esata - Hot plug them - not detected.
Cold plug gives a BSOD.
Ext HDDS are WD Caviars.
They work on USB2
Latest VIA Onboard - clean machines.
Wonder whether it could be chipset on ext drive enclosures?

Any ideas folks?

[NooNoo]

have a look at this I haven't played with esata yet... but I figure you need a driver.

eSATA is only supported with the VIA VT8237, VT8237R and VT8251 South Bridges as well as the CX700 and VX700 single chip solutions.

[constructor]

Thanks missed that
Stand by
Will give update

[constructor]

Drives in (via- falcon)

Still no joy might be the WD Drives or the chipset on the Ext Mobo.
Finding out what they are might be ??

Seems this is a real bag of worms.

[NooNoo]

Everest or Aida should give you the info...

[Platypus]

The SATA controllers aren't set to IDE emulation in the BIOS are they (to eliminate the need to F6 a SATA driver at OS installation)? That would disable hot-swap capability, and there would be no SATA driver loaded. (Assuming the systems are not running Vista).

[constructor]

Good point about emulation but BIOS is set to SATA

I think it may be the WD Caviars so will swap them out when I get new stock.
Hopefully then it will recognise the Ext drive and I can run everest on it.
Seems again you cannot mix any old thing and expect it to work.
Reading the Via notes indicate that the Falcon driver still has someway to go before it is robust.
Will give a update at end of week. I am curious about transfer speeds - box says 5x USB2.0. Believe it when I see it. If it does what it says on the tin I can get rid of some old expensive tape drives.

[NooNoo]

OMG, I think you need to read the problem again...

[CCT]

This is a VERY interesting thread in an area that I have no clue about - I found this info that may or may not help but is interesting anyway:

http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

[futuretech]

Are the drives formatted? I have run into USB enclosures that wont see a drive unless they are formatted (Airlink for one).

[constructor]

Yes formatted them using USB

I think it is either the WD Caviars are incompatible with the Via Driver or the mobo sATA connectors are not compatible with the backplate.

Time will tell.

[constructor]

Correct then I'll rephrase the issue/
Leads to USB ports are not 2.0 compatible.

Question are these exterior boxes USB powered or PSU inclosure?

Does the drive spin up?

Are there jumpers in the exterior boxes?

OMG
NO problem with A USB2.0 Connection
The boxes will supposedly run with Usb or eSata.
They are self powered.
Formatted and Usb2.0 works fine.
It is when I switch them to eSata and use a eSata backplate lead to connect them to the mobo they are not detected.
Critical issue here is the use of the eSata NOT usb.

eSata will run 5x faster or so they say!

[Kenteth420]

I am running a board with the Nvidia 680i chipset. I had no eSata connection on my motherboard, I purchased an enclosure that came with a backplate, I hooked that up, went into the bios and I had options to configure my sata ports, I could change from raid, sata, or esata, I changed mine to esata and it worked fine. You may want to see if you have that option. I had done this right away so I don't know if I would have blue screened or not been able to see the drive had I not changed this setting in the bios, sounds like something you may want to see if your bios has an option to do though.

[Platypus]

eSata will run 5x faster or so they say!

eSATA is much, much faster than USB. The system effectively sees no difference between my external eSATA and an internal SATA drive.

[NooNoo]

Building a nice beast today, the mobo comes with an esata back plate, if the customer is not in a hurry, will have a play and see.