Enable eSATA on Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H

[StarsFan4Life]

So, I purchased this motherboard a few weeks ago from Frys. I then purchased an external 2.5" drive where I put a 120gb drive in it. It has both eSATA and USB support. The usb side works just fine, just needs to work with the supplied usb Y cable (single side on the external, dual usb connected to PC - one for power, one for data).

For weeks I tried using my onboard eSATA port and found that this external drive needed a 5VC power source, which has been hard to come by. I found one today! I got home, plugged it in to the power and it powerd up!

So I connected it to the onboard eSATA port and nothing. It won't pick up the drive. Any idea why? Do I need to do something special here? I have never used eSATA before.

 

[perdomot]

Sounds like the mobo isn't set up to detect hotswap drives. Try leaving the esata hdd on and reboot. It should see the esata hdd upon reboot as if you added a new hdd internally.

 

[StarsFan4Life]

I tried that too. No go.

 

[heyheybooboo]

If you enter the BIOS at boot is the drive recognized ?? Is the drive setting in the BIOS on 'Auto' ?

Could there be a conflict with another installed SATA drive? Switch your internal drive connection to another port ...

 

[perdomot]

You can try the Hotswap utility and once running, right click on the icon in the taskbar and select "scan for hardware changes"

 

[Old Hippie]

Sounds like maybe the case's eSATA interface isn't working?

How about a link to your enclosure?

 

[MikeODanyurs]

This Chipset is known for problems with eSATA hotswapping, it won't work for me either. You might have to reinstall windows with the SATA driver on Windows install if you haven't done so.