for thoes technically minded ones...

[[SCUM] Blackout]

i have bought a 1TB external harddrive(esata capable), im trying to use the eSATA cable to connect it to my PC. for some reason the pc thinks the HDD is a diskdrive.... i can connect with USB and all works fine. it just wont accept the eSATA - eSATA connection....

when the hdd is connected through eSATA connection, the pc tries to boot from it when i first turn it on, says something about checking bios or something.. the pc then loads windows and the disk is recognised as a CD/DVD drive..

i have had as look around the net for a solution and it said to try and go into disk management and then rescan drives.. this however doesnt change anything... another thing i saw mentioned the RAID drivers. but im not sure what there on about like,,

I never got any drivers or anything with it, just 2 usermanual disks for some reason..

ANY IDEAS?

EDIT *//
***/This is the Label on the HDD itself


***/found this in the user manual for my MOBO, i had a look in the bios but couldnt find the J-Micron setting referd to.

[[SCUM] Miginty]

iv not delt with pc's for a bit, so this is just a (slightly) educated guess, but how old is ur mobo, cos it mite b that id doesn't recognise a drive that big. or which is more probable, im completley wrong..........so tlk 2 dr (mc) phil

[[SCUM] Blackout]

lol, MO'BO is fairly new (only got PCless than a year ago) but thnx anyway m8

[[SCUM] Miginty]

What connectors do you have on ur mobo, and do any of them look like the pics on the hdd's box

[[SCUM] Blackout]

I have an eSATA connection (e = external) i have an eSATA cable that connectos to the back of the hard drive and to the back of the PC to the eSATA port.

[[SCUM] Miginty]

mmmmmmmm, ok my last idea is have u looked at the device manager list, try to dissable it , then try rescanning, if that doesnt work, try completley uninstalling it (all from the device manager list), then try rescanning , as my old pc wudnt let my use a disc drive, even tho it was on the list, so one uninstall and a rescan later all was well, so if none of that works, a quick cup of water to the middle of the pc and a quick call to the insurance co.

[[SCUM] Miginty]

how's ur prob coming along blackout, any progress, or was i no help at all (most likely lol)

[[SCUM] Blackout]

i have sent an email to the maker of my HDD, McP saya it sounds like a BIOS error, it might need patching. just waiting to hear back from themandill take it from there!,cheers for the support tho m8!

[[SCUM] McPhil]

i have sent an email to the maker of my HDD, McP saya it sounds like a BIOS error, it might need patching. just waiting to hear back from themandill take it from there!,cheers for the support tho m8!

It's not an error m8. It's a possible incompatibility.

When you have cutting edge components in your kit it is near impossible for manufacturers to make top end components 100% compatible with each other. The onboard firmware of your HDD or motherboard will need to be updated to fix these types of incompatibilities. Basically your HDD manufacturer will need to provide your motherboard manufacturer a firmware sample and visa versa. In a short period of time, if your HDD manufacturer has enough requests, they will patch the firmware to be compatible with your kit or the motherboard manufacturer will release a new bios to make the HDD compatible. After your email your HDD manufacturer, check the product page and click on the firmware updates or support link on that product page. That should take you to any available firmware already available. Open the read me files and see if the firmware update will possibly fix your specific issue.

***NEVER PATCH A FIRMWARE OR BIOS UNLESS YOU HAVE TO FIX A SPECIFIC ISSUE***

***PATCHING A FIREWARE OR BIOS PROVIDES A RISK OF DESTROYING YOUR COMPONENT WHICH IS OUTSIDE OF ANY MANUFACTURER'S WARRANTY***

[dadof3]

Plug the sucka up when the computer is off. When you turn it on go into the bios and make sure you boot from your internal hard drive first and while you're in there you can see if the bios is picking up your external drive too.

[[SCUM] McPhil]

Plug the sucka up when the computer is off. When you turn it on go into the bios and make sure you boot from your internal hard drive first and while you're in there you can see if the bios is picking up your external drive too.

I believe he said he tried that in an email to me all ready. It seems to be a standard compatibility issue.

[dadof3]

[/quote]I believe he said he tried that in an email to me all ready. It seems to be a standard compatibility issue.[/quote]

That's all I had lol. I haven't had an opportunity to play with a mobo that had SATA ports yet. I thought they'd be an easy PnP. How do you power the hard drive though?

[[SCUM] McPhil]

usually eSata products are powered by a wall outlet; however mid-year 2008 the SATA-IO (Serial ATA International Organization) announced it's released a version of eSata connectors that draw power from the sata cable called Power Over eSATA. The technology currently only support enough power to run a 2.5-inch drive. It is thought that Power Over eSATA will catch up with USB and IEEE 1394 Firewire external devices but Intel has announced they are working on a fiber-optic version of the USB. They are promising transfer speeds of about 5GB/s which is over 10x faster then your current USB external device. The 1394 Trade Association will have a faster version on the market with about 3.2Gb/s to please the Mac users.

The only down side of eSata at this point of the ability to hot plug in your eSata products. USB and 1394 have been able to do this for years with only minor annoyances from the OS "safe device removal" prompt (who really uses that anyway?)

Be sure to post here before purchasing any external device. There are pros and cons to everything. Getting info upfront is always less painful than trying to sort through issues after making a blind purchase.