ESATA doesn't work on hot plugging

[Sakura90]

Hi!

As I already have several HDDs, I thought that making a homebrew esata would be nice for not having to open the chassis and exchange the drives when I want to backup or something. Also for being able to connect and remove the drives on the fly.

With my mobo came an esata bracket like this:



But putting that on the back would be really uncomfortable, so I tried to find a way to put it on front. Taking a 3 1/2 bay, together with half of a memory reader case and some tape, I managed to make it look like this:



Final model:



Pretty ghetto, but it works.

The thing is, when I connect the drive under Windows, it doesn't appear. The drive is on (I can tell by touching it), but Windows doesn't recognize it. I have to restart the PC and there it works fine. For unplugging it's good, I go to safely remove on the systray, take out the drive and disconnect cables. But then again, reconnecting it doesn't work. Is there something I'm missing? A driver? I have a Gigabyte mobo with 785G/SB710 (AHCI is enabled).

[kureshii]

Tried installing/reinstalling the AHCI drivers for your mobo?

[Sakura90]

Tried installing/reinstalling the AHCI drivers for your mobo?

It really was that simple . I was using Microsoft AHCI/SATA drivers (that come with Win7) but those don't support hot plugging for connecting (although they do support hot plugging for removing the device). Installed AMD drivers for AHCI and everything works like a charm. Now I need to find a proper cheap esata front panel without flashy screens or crap. This one works good, but when I unplug the cables the whole plug comes out of the memory reader case and the tape isn't the best for keeping them fixed there. Or maybe I should try with a plastic glue and spread it all over the plugs and case

[kureshii]

Glad to hear If you want plain front panels, just buy one you like, cover up the ports and spray-paint it? XD

[Sakura90]

Glad to hear If you want plain front panels, just buy one you like, cover up the ports and spray-paint it? XD

Maybe... but here all panels are too expensive and come riddled with usb, auido ports, screens and other fancy stuff. This would be perfect (it's even a metal case and no cheap plastic):




Or better... this one, two esata and power ports <3




But I'm out of luck here




P.S.: It's not all pink with the AHCI AMD drivers. In fact they are pretty crappy despite the esata working well. It seems that AMD in their infinte driver wisdom blocked access to the disks' SMART and info. So for HDTune for eg., the disks are ghosts. It lists them but doesn't show any info. And to make things worse, SpeedFan hangs at startup. It can't access the SMART (or sensor or whatever) and it crashes the whole PC (reset is the only exit). So now I can't control the sys_fan of the mobo, and no other working fan control program seems to exist . People already complaind about those AMD drivers, it's been a long while since that, but AMD simple shove them up their asses. If you want proper esata and want to control 3-pin case fans, avoid AMD <.<. At least until SpeedFan gets fixed, your mobo includes a good oc/fan control program (my Gigabyte's EasyTune is short of features) or you plan on using a physical fan controller

[kureshii]

If you're looking for front panels and not exactly on a tight budget you can take a look at Lian-Li's selection. Not cheap, but really lovely.

Are the drivers you're talking about from Gigabyte or AMD? AMD seems to have a separate download for their chipset drivers, separate from third-party manufacturers.