Gateway fx6800: second hd through hotswap tray not working

It might the drive you're trying to hotswap? Exactly what is it? And what does your Gateway use to hot swap? SATA?

Did you read the manual on "hot swap" ? If it is a SATA drive hot swap is only supported under vista and it needs to be "ejected" by the OS to prevent damage to the drive and the board.
This is like the E-Sata option that is offered by other manufacturers

The drive is a maxtor maxline plus II 250gb sata drive.
GAteway uses a built in sata hotswap trya feature:
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668210.php
I got it at tiger direct refurbed for $699.00

I didnt receive any manual with it as it is a refurb. Theres a pdf on it about the system (their manual?) and it simply says to install the drive and vista will recognize it.

Rigth now the only time I can get vista to recognize the drive is to let the computer go to sleep then wake it up, then itll access the drive.

I still dont get the long boot time tho, if the drive is in it takes forever (3 minutes) if not it boots right away (35 seconds)

Hey Burketh, Did you ever get your 2nd HDD to work right? I have the refurb gateway fx6800-01e & when i plug in a 2nd Seagate 750gb sata into the front tray, I only can get the bios screen, Vista wont load & no wizard opens for setup/format either. I sure could use info from someone who did this before.  

i have same computer just set it up with two rapters 74 gb each works flawless!! but i did disconect org drive from inside and am running both drives in the front cabnet provided . .. do you have both drives in fron or one inside and secibd up front might be the problem .. also set up raid on in bios / and ctrl I settings on start up right after before doing clean install of windows !!

sorry my typing is bad you have to go into bio and enable raid first then you will notice when you restart the comp. you see hit ctrl i for raid set up or just hit crtl i a few times wile booting and it will come up select the two drives if not already and restart open boot order and select cdrom to boot from and reinstall windows .. must be a clean install can not use prevous install of windows also know you will lose all info if not back up before hand if any other questions ztightz@yahoo.com .. hope this helps

eSATA

Are you ready for transfer rates triple those of USB 2.0 and FireWire 400? Then you're ready for eSATA, the hot-swappable option designed for super-fast, super-reliable data transfer from external mass storage devices.

The prior quote was from the Gateway's product page, which was previously provided in this posting thread.

Therefore, it does not refer to the Two 3.5" front access for tool-less swap HDD bays (refer to notes 2 or 3, depending upon your actual system model)

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Notes 2 or 3: Turn the PC off before inserting HDDs.

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The two " eSATA " ports are located on the rear I/O panel (and they are optional, depending upon the actual model).

This is where the " Hot-Swappable " interfaces are located to allow for the eSATA drive to be attached.

Rear View Image [ http://support.gateway.com/s/desktop/2009/gateway/fx/fx... ]





This is the rear view of the computer. Refer to the following table for more information.
Number Description
--- 1. --- AC power connector
--- 2. --- PS/2 mouse port
--- 3. --- PS/2 keyboard port
--- 4. --- Serial port
--- 5. --- Two eSATA ports
--- 6. --- Six USB ports
--- 7. --- Exhaust fan vent
--- 8. --- IEEE 1394a port
--- 9. --- Ethernet (RJ-45) LAN port
--- 10. -- Six audio ports
--- 11. -- Add-in card retention latchretention
--- 12. -- High-end NVIDIA® or ATI™ graphics card.

I just purchased a FX6831with the same drive bays and I cannot even put the drive into the cradle which slides into the bay. How were you able to get you HDD into/on the cradle. Going crazy, any help would be appreciated.

Please read this thread to address your questions about the Front Trays.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251133-32-gateway-pro...

You have online documentation loaded on your computer too.

You pull the tray out, flex the sides, slip in the drive, align the tab, as per the pictures provided on the thread found above, slip in the tray, containing the drive (SATA type of drive ONLY). As per the prior instructions, these bays are NOT hot-swappable. You would what to have the computer powered off, before you slip in the tray containning the drive. Then, power-up the computer, the drive will be recognized, you can look via the BIOS screen, before actually doing a complete Windows OS load ... , and all the computer's world will be become whole.

wow, thanks for the quick reply! This is exactly what I was looking for yesterday, but I couldn't find the info. Thanks agian for the help.

I'm having a similar problem...the tabs are just 1/16" too far apart front to back, so while I can get to two rear tabs inserted I can never get the front and rear in at the same time...I'm going to use needlenose and try to either bend the tab slightly or add a rise to the metal insert in order to shorten the distance between the two tabs.

This is with a Patriot XL 3.5" RAID enclosure, fitted with dual OCZ Vertex SSDs, fwiw.

Here are instructions on how to add an SATA drive to Gateway's front facing "hotswap" tray in Windows 7. The drive will not be recognized by Windows 7 until it's formatted and given a letter. I did not have to do anything in the BIOS.

1. Turn PC OFF
2. Insert hard drive into hotswap tray (using plastic cradle)
3. Boot up PC
4. Goto the Windows' START menu and find "Computer" (formerly "My Computer"). Right click on "Computer" and select "Manage" from the drop down menu to get Admin Privileges. A new window will open titled, "Computer Management".
5. Expand the Storage menu from the list and click on Disk Management
6. Right click on the new SATA drive that is unlabeled and choose "New Simple Volume" (you will assign a Letter to the new drive and perform a quick format)
7. You should now see the drive in "My Computer"

- This should take no more than five minutes max.
- Getting the drive into the plastic cradle takes much longer!  

So if the PC has to been turned off before inserting the drive, then is it really hotswapable?