eSATA Problem in Recognition

tomrhyne

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Jan 9, 2010
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Posted on Mobo forum but no response, so I thought I would try here.

Just built a new i7-4790K system with 4 Samsung Pro SSDs and one WD Black 2 TB drive uusing Gigabyte Z97X- UD5H-BK mobo and Windows 8.1. All working well until I installed an eSATA drive. (Using this for backup.) Blew my mind for a while when the Optical drive didn't show up with eSATA connected until I found out that the Marvel chips will not support a mix of hard drives and optical. I then placed the eSATA on port 5 of the Intel chip and worked properly.

Now experiencing another problem. eSATA works correctly when using a Samsung HD642J (640 GB drive. Drive is detected in BIOS and shows up in Disk Management, etc. Powered down and inserted a WD 30EZRX 3 TB drive and rebooted into BIOS. Drive not recognized in BIOS on same port that worked properly with 640GB drive. Continue to boot system and drive doesn't show up in Disk Management or File Explorer or Device Manager. In Intel Rapid Storage Technology the port with the eSATA drive status changes from empty, to unknown drive to occasionally showing the drive with 2.7+ TB of data and then going back to empty.

I placed the drive back on my Windows 7 system as an external drive and it is detected and works well. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.
 

tomrhyne

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Jan 9, 2010
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The drive has been formatted and has been and continues to work well on a Windows 7 PC. The Intel SATA port which I have it connected to support 6, 3, and 1.5 Gb/s. The Marvel also supports these data rates, but you can only have two hard drives or two optical drives connected to the Marvel SATA ports. You cannot mix drives. I found that out when I connected this drive to one of the Marvel ports while having the other port connected to my optical drive. This created an IRQ conflict. Keep suggesting.
 

tomrhyne

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Jan 9, 2010
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Update: Connected both external drives to the Marvel SATA ports and moved the optical drive to the an Intel SATA port. Booted up and BIOS showed both drives detected (640Gb & 3TB). Exited BIOS and booted up 8.1. Lock Screen came up and then went to login. Entered password and enter and it took a very long time for Windows to open. When it did the desktop was blank and when attempting to go to start screen it would flash on with no tiles showing and then would immediately revert to blank desktop. Nothing came up when right clicked MS icon in lower left. I could run task manager using CTRL+ALT+ESC. I suspected a defective Vantec external drive enclosure so I took the 3TB drive out of the enclosure and mounted it inside the PC case using the same Marvel SATA port. Booted into BIOS and drive was detected. Saved and exited and booted Windows. Everything working as desired. 3TB drive shows up in File Explorer, Disk Management, and Device Manager. I conclude that the Vantec enclosure must be defective; probably sending garbage to the Marvel chip which caused problems with Windows 8.1. Going to leave system as is and see if any more issues surface.
 

tomrhyne

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Jan 9, 2010
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I use an eSATA cable. My other enclosure supports up to 1 TB; otherwise I would have swapped them out to see if the trouble follows the enclosure. I still have one external drive so that is really all I need. Thanks for your help.