View Full Version : eSATA and Windows 7?
Having read about how fast eSATA external drives are, compared with USB, I lashed out on one for my Win 7 desktop. Since both internal SATA connectors on the motherboard are already in use, I bought a PCI-to-eSATA card for the PC, which it says it sees OK, is working correctly, has the right drivers, etc.
However, the eSATA drive won't work. If I boot without the drive connected, all works OK. It I boot with it connected and switched on, the PC freezes at the "flying windows" stage. It also flashes up the "bootable SATA card" message at bootup if there's a drive connected, and not if there isn't.
If I boot without the eSATA, and then connect it, the PC freezes.
I've contacted Verbatim, who made the drive, and they are "looking into it". However, a friend of mine has had an eSATA drive and the same problem for months with no response from the manufacturer so I'm not hopeful.
I've connected the drive as USB and it works fine, but that defeats the point of paying the higher price for eSATA.
So, the questions:
1. Has anyone got an eSATA external drive to work with Win 7?
2. ... via a PCI card?
3. Does anyone know of a PCI card that will work with eSATA? I don't have PCI-E so those are no use to me.
vulcanised
28th Sep 2010, 19:42
Not an answer I'm afraid, but I suspect this is a badge engineered drive and it might pay you to do some digging to discover who really made it.
Yes, done that already. The box says Verbatim, and it's Verbatim who have referred my problem to "our technicians". That was a while ago, and no further reply have I had.
Windows 7 identifies it as "Samsung HD103SI SCSI Disk Device" which is interesting indeed, since there is no SCSI stuff on this PC. My trusty old SCSI card won't work with Win 7 since Adaptec haven't written a driver for it - and anyway the drive has an eSATA connector and not a SCSI one.
Simonta
28th Sep 2010, 20:40
Hi Keef
Not sure if this will be help or hindrance but here goes.
I can't remember the reason why, found only after hours of searching, but I had to replace the motherboard on one of my PCs because, despite the fact it supported SATA drives, had very similar symptoms to yours. The only way I could get the damn thing fired up was to boot from IDE. In fairness, it was probably a BIOS problem than a motherboard issue and a BIOS update might have been the answer but at the time, I was still trying to run Flight Sim on an old single core CPU so the new motherboard was a simple choice.
Regarding reporting SATA as SCSI, nothing to be concerned about. Again, can't remember the details but there is a sound technical reason why 3rd party drivers report themselves as SCSI to Windows. Something to do drive request buffering. Perfectly normal.
Thanks, Simonta - yes, that makes sense.
The motherboard has two SATA sockets and I have two SATA drives plugged in there and working happily. The snag is with eSATA, for which I've got a PCI card. I would hope the MoBo BIOS wouldn't enter into that, and that the driver for the PCI card is what matters (or the BIOS on the card).
I've spent a happy couple of hours digging on various Win 7 sites. Not found an answer, but lots of other folks have the same problem.
Booglebox
3rd Oct 2010, 14:35
I'm having a similar problem with my machine refusing to identify an internal PCI SATA RAID expansion card (all 4 mobo ports are used....... I should get a life!) For the moment I have sort of given up. :ugh:
Do let us know how you get on. :cool: I sincerely hope that the solution doesn't involve floppy disks!! :hmm:
Much experimentation later... (I was curious).
Since the eSATA drive wouldn't accle and caused the PC to have a serious headache, I went after the problem in stages.
The PC has two SATA connections on the motherboard, with the two internal SATA drives connected to them. Hence the need for a PCI card, which has two more SATA connectors on the "inside" and an eSATA on the outside.
So I unplugged the second internal SATA drive from the motherboard and connected it to the PCI card, then booted up the PC. It found the drive on the PCI card with no problems at all, just as if it were connected to the motherboard.
With the HD on the PCI card, it also appeared in the boot sequence - after the graphics card and the motherboard, but before Windows started. With no drive connected to the PCI card, it didn't appear.
I removed all the drivers for the PCI card before doing the above, and let Windows 7 find the right ones (in its opinion) on the Internet.
Whereas the CD that came with the card contained "viamraid.sys", Win 7 chose "vsmraid.sys".
That indicates, I think, that the PCI card is OK and connects SATA drives with no problems.
But with an eSATA drive connected, the PC hangs, crashes, and generally gets very upset indeed under Windows 7. All that I've found on the web indicates that eSATA and Win 7 will not coexist. Lots of folks have the problem; very few have sorted it (I think they actually have their drives connected as "external SATA". I'd love to find a fix.
Bushfiva
5th Oct 2010, 01:26
Do you have the latest AHCI driver? Do you have AHCI enabled? AHCI provides hot swap support and power management to removable SATA devices. Install driver, then enable in BIOS. Not vice versa.
If you can't find an AHCI driver for the card, then you can enable Win 7's own AHCI support but I believe it's an old driver. But since the card has an eSATA connector, I assume it came with a driver CD.
There's no AHCI in the BIOS of the motherboard, but the PCI card came with an install routine that reckoned it fixed all that - for Vista. I ran that, then updated it with the latest version from the VIA website. Made no difference.
Folks I've spoken to played for a while with AHCI and got no further, so I didn't spend long on it.
I've put the card in its box and relegated it to the workshop now. The drive is USB until Verbatim answer my e-mail. Life's too short!
superG3
5th Oct 2010, 05:08
try USB 3. Plenty of external drives now on the market, way faster than eSata, will need another pci card though. Just a thought if it keeps giving you grief.
Thanks, but that may be a step further than I want to go. I've referred the problem back to Verbatim, asking for a refund or the missing Win 7 drivers.