esata drive wont initialise

[Scalextrix]

Have an esata enclosure with a working HDD, have 2 x spare HDD that were originally part of a RAID-0 boot array.
When I put either spare HDD in the esata caddy, it wont initialise, just gives the error 'The system cannot find the file specified'.

any ideas?

 

[ch33zw1z]

What exactly are you trying to do? If you're trying to access the drives individually on a different OS install, then you'll have to reformat each of the drives that were part of the RAID 0 array.

 

[Scalextrix]

Im trying to use either of the spare drives as an extrnal backup drive.

How do I format the drive, if its not initialised?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Post the complete system specs, including what Operating System (OS) you're using. If you're using windows XP or greater, go into Start>Right click on "My Computer", choose Manage. Inside that choose Disk Management. If you can see the disk in there, you just need to kill whatever's on the drive and format it from that menu.

 

[Scalextrix]

Ok its a Dell XPS 420 Q6600 8GB RAM Vista Ultimate 64 Bit
Primary boot volume is on a 1TB (2 x 500GB) RAID-0 formatted with a C drive for OS and Apps, P for personal data and Z drive for music/video.

When I go into disk managment there is an immediate popup that identifies the esata drive as DISK 5 and tells me it needs to be initialised, as soon as I choose to do that it gives me the error in my original post.

If I try to format the drive, it tells me the disk must be initialised.

The spare drives Im trying to use are:
Seagate 7200.10 320GB
Western Digital 3200AKS 320GB

The esata works perfectly with an old Maxtor 160GB drive

You say I need to 'kill' whats on the drive, how?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Do you have a spare SATA port (not the eSATA) on the inside of the chassis? If so, hook it up to that and try it that way.

 

[Idontcare]

My esata doesn't like brand new drives, I first have to connect them to a regular internal sata, format and partition them thru windows as you are trying, and then hook them up with esata (requisite power-downs are involved in there, no hot-plugging the drives).

Once the esata drive has a valid partition on it and windows "sees" the drive just fine then I am able to delete and repartition/reformat the esata drive at my will. There is just something about esata that confuses windows sometimes. Have never been able to figure it out.

(my esata is marvell on-board the mobo, P5E WS Pro)

 

[rolodomo]

When using an eSATA link to any of my SATA II drives in my external HD enclosure, I have to jumper the HD from "SATA II" to "SATA I" speed. Otherwise, they fail to initialize in VISTA. I think it has something to do with the SATA II spec. being more susceptable to signal attenuation over the eSATA link. I also have to initialize my motherboard Marvell *IDE* controller (ASUS P5Q-E board).

SATA I still is not bad, it's a lot better than transferring big files over a USB link.

 

[Scalextrix]

Thanks to everyone, I dont have a spare SATA cable to try initialising the drive internally but for the utility of having another 640GB of backup space Ill buy one, they are ony a few quid after all.

 

[Scalextrix]

Hi All, found a SATA cable Id forgotten I had and rigged up one of the drives internally, problem was it still wouldnt initialise.....!

Restarted the machine and saw in my RAID configuration that it was now showing 2 RAID arrays, 1 healthy and the other failed.
The RAID controller was seeing both of these old drives as part of a broken RAID volume. I removed them from being in the RAID and they returned to being single drives.

They are now formatted and working fine for backups!

Thanks to you all again, without your suggestions Id never have got this solved.

 

[ch33zw1z]

:thumbsup: