Asus Sabertooth Z87 & eSATA - Drive not recognized or disappears

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RotorAv8r

Honorable
Jul 31, 2013
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10,510
Sabertooth Z87
BIOS version 2103
Intel i7-4770K (Haswell??)@ 3.50GHz
32G DDR3 RAM (Patriot 1866 CL10 Series)

Running optimized defaults and OS (Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit) is installed on a 1G RAID 0 volume.

All drivers are the latest available from the ASUS website with one exception (see below)

Have a number of Western Digital 80 and 120G drives I need to mount and unmount on a semi-regular basis for some legacy product support tasks. Currently trying to connect these drives via the external eSATA port and housing the drives in a HornetTek enclosure.

Hooked it all up, powered up the drive and the OS recognized the drive, but left an "Unknown Device" entry in Device Manager. Poking around in the driver details, I determined the system needed an updated Intel Smart Connect Technology driver. I was already running the latest driver available via the ASUS website, but found an updated "generic" ISCT driver and installed it which took care of the Device Manager issue.

For a couple days, the drive was recognized and I was able to read data from it, but a couple days ago, it disappeared from the system. I thought it had failed, but plugging in via a cheap USB drive copier, I can read and write to the drive just fine. Going back to the eSATA interface, the drive is not recognized.

I've spent the past couple days reading here and other forums and have been trying suggested solutions based on other folks experiencing similar issues, but still do not have a solution.

ASUS Support has been of zero help. Their solution is to make sure all the drivers are updated and to enable AHCI in the BIOS, but are unable to tell me if AHCI is enabled when I have the disk controller set to RAID. The manual kind of hints at it being enabled, but I cannot find a conclusive answer.

Anybody have any suggestions?
 
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panathas

panathas

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Feb 12, 2014
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Asus site doesn't have the most recent drivers, especially for relatively old boards like yours. They usually stop posting new drivers after 1 or 2 years. You should search for new drivers manually in other sites. Check the manufacturer of each motherboard component first and then find their sites. For Sata drivers you should go to Intel's site and search for the latest Rapid Storage drivers unless you are using Sata ports that are connected to another add-on chipset. In that case you have to find the exact model and the manufacturer in your board's manual.
 
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R

RotorAv8r

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Jul 31, 2013
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10,510
Appreciate the response, but that doesn't really explain why it was working for a time and then stopped. In any case, shortly after my post, I updated the Asmedia 106x SATA controller drivers to the latest available on Asmedia's web site. I also updated the Intel SATA/RAID chipset drivers to the latest on Intel's site. Zero change.

Digging through the manual, I saw a reference to eSATA mode being an option in the PCIe x16_3 config, but my options are only AUTO, X4 and X1. I tried all three, but still no change.

Pulled the drive from the external enclosure and connected it with an external power supply and different eSATA cable. Still not recognized.

I have a feeling I'm overlooking something really simple, but just not seeing it right now.
 
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panathas

panathas

Splendid
Feb 12, 2014
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Have you tried both eSATA ports? Are you sure that they are working? Maybe one of the ports got somehow damaged. Also are you sure that those 2 ports aren't using shared motherboard resources with something else? Search you manual carefully. Maybe it's a PCIe slot or internal Sata ports.

EDIT: On the bottom of the specs on the motherboard's page it says *2: These SATA ports are for data hard drivers only. ATAPI devices are not supported. So I am asking how old are those 2 drives that you are trying to use. Maybe that's where the actual problem is and you are facing a compatibility issue. If those 2 drives are the first Sata drives that WD produced, they must have both sata and molex power connectors, and if my memory is correct they were just internal ATA drives with external SATA bridges and not real SATA drives.
 
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RotorAv8r

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Jul 31, 2013
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10,510
Yes, tried both ports, still no joy. I checked the manual for shared resources and then checked internally to see how the drives in the case were connected. I *believe* everything is ok in that respect. Drives do not have Molex connectors for power.

Haven't spent much time messing with it of late, but I will need to find a solution at some point in the near future..

 
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