eSATA woes

[oldnewb]

As a video editor who works with huge files, I'm always in the market for fast efficient ways to transfer files between computers, including computers across town. I was so excited when I heard of eSATA external drives that I went out and bought two. Alas, they're more trouble than they're worth. I even upgraded a computer to run Vista ? still no luck. When the drives are unplugged and moved to another computer, they aren't recognized, and when I when I move them back to the computer they were attached to, they have been forgotten and aren't recognized either! This happens regularly with eSATA and sometime with USB. I know to go through - control panel - computer management - disk management - I dutifully reactivate volume, or import foreign volume, then when I go to "My Computer" they don't show up! When I put the drives back in the case on a regular SATA cable they are fine. Are there any solutions?

 

[Old Hippie]

All eSATA ports are not created equal.

Your problem is probably because the MBs you're working with have SATA ports plumbed externally.

My advice is to have those eSATA units powered on and plugged in when the computer is booted.

Another trick may be, go to the device manager and rescan for hardware changes.

Good Luck!

 

[nmaf]

i recently bought the p6t deluxe which comes with an esata port... i had a WD 1tb ext drive with usb/firewire/esata ... the drive worked fine in both vista and xp on either firewire or usb connections, and the bios would detect the esata connection, but windows simply wouldn't "see" the drive... turns out Marvell controllers aren't compatible with WD esata drives... it seems as tho it's a small enough market segment that it's not getting the attention it requires to become a more widely used connection (ahh, the infamous catch 22).

as well, from my troubleshooting the esata connection, it appears it is NOT hot swappable, and you have to physically shut your pc down before connecting the drive, and to remove it. also, the sata and esata drivers for my mobo were seperate. so there are probably a few different possible reasons for your issues.

me? i returned the $20.99 esata cable, and hope for a day when my drive communicates with the marvell controller.
good luck.