Esata port mulitplier on Vista 64 laptop

kiboy6

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Feb 20, 2009
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I have a HP dv5 notebook with an AMD chipset which I bought a few months ago.

Initially I successfully downgraded the notebook to XP 32 bit.

Running XP I had no problem seeing all drives in my TOWERRAID esata enclosure:
http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid/tr5mb.html


I just restored my notebook to the factory Vista 64 OS.

Now, I can only see a single drive in my external tower. (I was never running any RAID array in the tower - I just want to see all the drives).

For some reason the esata controller seems to no longer be capable of using the port multiplier feature with Vista 64 installed.

I do hope there is a workaround for this!

Many thanks if anyone has any suggestions :)
 

kiboy6

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Thanks for the tip nukemaster...unfortunately no improvement after updating the chipset drivers from ATI.

I'm presuming there's just some annoying Vista64 issue with my built in esata port.

However, an esata expresscard like the one i mentioned should do the trick, shouldn't it?

Thanks!
 
It looks like it should, Is there any chance that there is a different driver mode needed for port replication? I have never used such a system, but it sure seems like a good way to get more drive of my one and only Esata port (The other internal 7 are already taken with 6 drives and a bluray player) and even that last one has a 1000GB backup drive, but that is not on all the time.
 

kiboy6

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I don't think so...if there is I haven't been able to find anyone mentioning it - despite some extensive googling.

However, the expresscard is it's own controller, and advertises itself as port-multiplier aware, so I'm hoping that will sort me out. Damn annoying that Vista is effectively crippling my onboard hardware though.