Not detecting external drive (esata)

Daak12

Honorable
Apr 12, 2014
54
0
10,530
Dell optiplex 960 SFF
Windows 7 pro 32 bit
Intel Q45 Express Chipset w/ICH10DO

Esata port worked fine on vista home 32 bit. Then I installed window 7 pro 32 bit and chipset driver given to me by dell. now the port seems dead and wont recognize the HDD in Drive management. I verified its not the drive or cable (works fine on another computer).

The chipset driver linked to me and installed is:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=R0JHR&fileId=3156035677&osCode=W732&productCode=optiplex-960&languageCode=EN&categoryId=CS

any ideas? seems like it should be something really simple - maybe a separate esata controller or some enable setting somewhere...
 
Solution
Hmm, I never did get my eSATA port working on a system that had IDE mode turned on. Even tried some registry fiddling which got Windows 7 to boot with it on. Didn't solve the problem though.

A fresh install of Windows 7 with AHCI turned on solved it for me.

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
AHCI usually has to be on for a Windows install to see eSATA. Not sure why it would have been off if it was working before.

Karsten is correct as well. There should be drivers for the SATA/RAID controller, the onboard audio, network card, and more.
 

Daak12

Honorable
Apr 12, 2014
54
0
10,530


When I was using Vista, AHCI was off and it was set to IDE compat. I will look for additional drivers. Does IRST need to be installed?
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Hmm, I never did get my eSATA port working on a system that had IDE mode turned on. Even tried some registry fiddling which got Windows 7 to boot with it on. Didn't solve the problem though.

A fresh install of Windows 7 with AHCI turned on solved it for me.
 
Solution