[Solved] Windows 7 not auto detecting my external esata hdd

I didn't have this problem back in XP. I have a 1TB external E-SATA HDD that I have plugged in the computer. The problem is everytime I turn it off then decide to turn it back on later to backup some stuff or to take some stuff out, Windows 7 doesn't automatically detect it.

To make it detect it I would have to go to device manager, right click on "Disk Drives" and click on "Scan for hardware changes" for it to detect my HDD again. This gets annoying.

Back in XP it would detect it right away and show it in "My Computer."

Is there anyway I can make it auto detect it like XP did?

I have this motherboard here http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] uctID=2442 and I already installed the drivers for it. I installed the vista 32 bit drivers because there weren't any windows 7 drivers.

Also, I asked this question on a another forum and they said its because I don't have AHCI enabled. I tried to look for it in my BIOS to see if its disabled, but I couldn't find it. I took pictures of my BIOS incase its named as something else that I don't know of. Here are the pics:

-[B]Main BIOS Screen:[/B] http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/387/dscn1048.jpg
-[B]Standard CMOS Features:[/B] http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7271/dscn1049.jpg
-[B]Advanced BIOS Features:[/B] http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3161/dscn1050.jpg
-[B]Advanced Chipset Features:[/B] http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1815/dscn1051.jpg
-[B]Integrated Peripherals (Page 1):[/B] http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/5394/dscn1052i.jpg
-[B]Integrated Peripherals (Page 2):[/B] http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/8500/dscn1053r.jpg
-[B]Power Management Setup:[/B] http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7545/dscn1054.jpg
-[B]PnP/PCI Configurations:[/B] http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2126/dscn1055.jpg
-[B]PC Health Status:[/B] http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/1674/dscn1056g.jpg
-[B]MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.):[/B] http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7263/dscn1057w.jpg

This worked fine in XP without any problems. I don't know why I have to scan for the hard drive everytime I turn it on. I don't know if AHCI was enabled back in XP but I never turned it off or anything.

Thanks in advance.

Reply to Mo786

If you don't have AHCI in your bios, you have to reboot to get it detected or scan for hardware changes.

Message edited by evongugg on 08-27-2009 at 02:39:38 PM

------------------------------ I am learning here!
Reply to evongugg

Maybe a fix will come out for Windows 7.

------------------------------ I am learning here!
Reply to evongugg

Best answer

What mobo is this? Looking at its manual might help understand where the options are found.

A few notes from your screenshots:
Your IDE Channel 0 has no Master? seems odd.

How is your HDD attached to an eSATA connection? Is there a separate eSATA port on the mobo? It does not seem to show up that way in the BIOS screens. But maybe it is on one of the regular SATA ports through a eSATA adapter?

Usually setting AHCI mode is in the Integrated Peripherals in the details of how each SATA port is managed. But your screenshots appear to indicate that, with each of your two ports set to Enabled, and the SATA RAID Function Disabled, you cannot change any details of the two SATA ports on each of the simulated IDE ports they seem to occupy. That's why I'm thinking the mobo manual may have some clues.

A caution: I have read (no personal experience) that changing a HDD from IDE emulation or Native SATA to AHCI can be difficult. That may not be so in Win7. Or, the notes I've seen may pertain only to boot drives with the OS on them - I don't know. Certainly I would expect that you could un-install a non-boot SATA device, change its port settings to AHCI, and install it that way without a lot of trouble.

AHCI includes hot-swap capabilities, which is definitely involved in auto-detecting the attachment or start-up of an eSATA device. Actually, I understood that a true eSATA controller also provided hot swap capability. BUT a simple adapter plate that converts a SATA port to an eSATA connector leaves you totally dependent on the capabilities of the SATA controller. Some SATA controllers also contain hot swap support, but some don't - that was not required in the SATA spec's, but IS required of a true eSATA controller.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Paperdoc

Paperdoc wrote :

What mobo is this? Looking at its manual might help understand where the options are found.

A few notes from your screenshots:
Your IDE Channel 0 has no Master? seems odd.

How is your HDD attached to an eSATA connection? Is there a separate eSATA port on the mobo? It does not seem to show up that way in the BIOS screens. But maybe it is on one of the regular SATA ports through a eSATA adapter?

Usually setting AHCI mode is in the Integrated Peripherals in the details of how each SATA port is managed. But your screenshots appear to indicate that, with each of your two ports set to Enabled, and the SATA RAID Function Disabled, you cannot change any details of the two SATA ports on each of the simulated IDE ports they seem to occupy. That's why I'm thinking the mobo manual may have some clues.

A caution: I have read (no personal experience) that changing a HDD from IDE emulation or Native SATA to AHCI can be difficult. That may not be so in Win7. Or, the notes I've seen may pertain only to boot drives with the OS on them - I don't know. Certainly I would expect that you could un-install a non-boot SATA device, change its port settings to AHCI, and install it that way without a lot of trouble.

AHCI includes hot-swap capabilities, which is definitely involved in auto-detecting the attachment or start-up of an eSATA device. Actually, I understood that a true eSATA controller also provided hot swap capability. BUT a simple adapter plate that converts a SATA port to an eSATA connector leaves you totally dependent on the capabilities of the SATA controller. Some SATA controllers also contain hot swap support, but some don't - that was not required in the SATA spec's, but IS required of a true eSATA controller.

I have the hard drive connected with a SATA to an eSATA connector. This one to be exact: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6812104063. My motherboard has hot-swap capabilities or else it wouldn't have worked when I had Windows XP. My motherboard doesn't have an eSATA port and the connector was the cheapest thing so I got that and it was working fine till now. Is something disabled for the SATA ports that maybe causing this?

Thanks

EDIT: This is the motherboard I have: GA-M55SLI-S4 (rev. 2.0)

Message edited by Mo786 on 08-27-2009 at 11:46:46 PM

Reply to Mo786

Problem solved. Thanks anyway

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Mo786

I have exactly the same problem. Hot swaps with the SATA external drive (thru an eSATA connector plate) worked fine with XP Pro but not so with Win7.

How did you eventually solve it?

Reply to Anonymous

I have the same problem with my e-SATA external HDD not being auto-detected in Windows 7 HP. I will see if I can get a solution here rather than in a new thread first.
I have managed to successfully enable AHCI on my motherboard (Asus M4A77TD Pro), I first went into the registry editor, went here HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci and changed the "Start" Value to 0.

I then restarted, went into BIOS, went into the SATA configuration option on the main page, made sure OnChip SATA Channel was enabled, then changed the OnChip SATA Type to AHCI on both options (SATA 1/2/3 and SATA 5/6 - recalled this info from memory). There is a note in my mobo manual that I should "ensure to install the AHCI driver", I did not ensure that I did this as I am not 100% sure how to do it.
I saved these changes and booted fine, Windows, seemingly, installed all the necessary drivers, then I restarted once more. And then I tested to see if my external hdd would be auto-detected, it still only gets detected when I go to device manager and search for hardware changes. I've changed the policies on the drive from better performance (with "Enable write caching on the device" enabled) to quick removal and back again. I like the quick removal policy because it means that I don't have to go into device manager to remove the device.
I have since checked that the AHCI option is still enabled in my BIOS and that the registry value is still as it should be, and they are. I get no problems reported in device manager and I have what I assume is the AHCI driver installed visible in DM, which is "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller".

I hope someone can help me.

Reply to Silvune

Any fix yet?

Same issue with an Asus p7p55d-e pro here and Windows 7. ideas?
Thanks!

Reply to rockgardenlove

I solved this problem by downloading and installing the general AHCI driver from AMD (not associated to the mobo, but still my mobo brand), for my OS version (in my case W7 64) :

http://support.asus.com/download/d [...] lname=AHCI

For those on different mobo brands, check their sites for AHCI drivers. The standard one from Windows 7 is 4 years old!

Hope this helps

Martin

UPDATE : Of course you needed to have activated AHCI in the BIOS first (with the necessary precautions as noted by Silvune)...

Message edited by Matoridi on 06-19-2010 at 08:53:02 PM

Reply to Matoridi

Mo786 wrote :

Problem solved. Thanks anyway

how did you sole the problem . other ppl have the same problem including me.

Reply to slmarker

Detection of hot swap disconnection and connection of eSATA drives is performed by the AHCI functions of the disk controller. In order for it to properly function in Windows 7 AHCI support must be enabled on the disk controller and the associated driver must be installed and enabled.

The recommended method of enabling AHCI on a compatible system is by installing the manufacturer disk controller driver with AHCI capacity then enabling AHCI in the system BIOS or on the disk controller. Under the condition that the disk controller driver is not available from the manufacturer, the default Windows 7 AHCI driver can be enabled via the registry by modifying the following two subkey values to 0:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV

More information can be found on TechNet <a href=” http://support.microsoft.com/kb/92 [...] lt;/a>.

Brandon
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro

Reply to WinOutreach

Missing Drive solution courtesy of simerly.d(at)gmail.com
Type in start menu, "disk management". Your missing drive should be in the lower panel.Note the disk number. Right click on your missing disk and select "Convert to dynamic disk".
Now type in start menu "cmd",(do not hit enter). Right click, then choose "open as administrator". You should see "c:\Windows\system32".(If not, go back to the open as administrator part).
Type "diskpart". You will see "DISKPART>" Type "list disk". Hopefully you will see your missing disk listed here.
Next, type "select disk x" x=your missing disk number. In my case, the missing drive was disk 1, so I typed "select disk 1". It then said "Disk 1 is now the selected disk" "DISKPART>" Now type "create volume simple". It replies, "DiskPart successfully created the volume."
Now go back to the "disk management" window. Your missing disk should be in the upper pane, but without a letter assignment. Simply right click on the disk and select "change
drive letter and paths..." I just went with the default,"e".
Format the drive. All of a sudden I have my drive back!
Special thanks to " simerly.d(at)gmail.com " for his solution to the problem. If it helps you, send him money and thanks! (I owe him dinner).

Reply to elrushbo

Paperdoc wrote :

What mobo is this? Looking at its manual might help understand where the options are found.

A few notes from your screenshots:
Your IDE Channel 0 has no Master? seems odd.

How is your HDD attached to an eSATA connection? Is there a separate eSATA port on the mobo? It does not seem to show up that way in the BIOS screens. But maybe it is on one of the regular SATA ports through a eSATA adapter?

Usually setting AHCI mode is in the Integrated Peripherals in the details of how each SATA port is managed. But your screenshots appear to indicate that, with each of your two ports set to Enabled, and the SATA RAID Function Disabled, you cannot change any details of the two SATA ports on each of the simulated IDE ports they seem to occupy. That's why I'm thinking the mobo manual may have some clues.

A caution: I have read (no personal experience) that changing a HDD from IDE emulation or Native SATA to AHCI can be difficult. That may not be so in Win7. Or, the notes I've seen may pertain only to boot drives with the OS on them - I don't know. Certainly I would expect that you could un-install a non-boot SATA device, change its port settings to AHCI, and install it that way without a lot of trouble.

AHCI includes hot-swap capabilities, which is definitely involved in auto-detecting the attachment or start-up of an eSATA device. Actually, I understood that a true eSATA controller also provided hot swap capability. BUT a simple adapter plate that converts a SATA port to an eSATA connector leaves you totally dependent on the capabilities of the SATA controller. Some SATA controllers also contain hot swap support, but some don't - that was not required in the SATA spec's, but IS required of a true eSATA controller.

I'm using onboard esata connection for my external disc but still when i turn it on after starting computer it doesn't detect it ?

Reply to ozzyville

Forum Storage : Hard Drives [Solved] Windows 7 not auto detecting my external esata hdd

General Discussion

Hard Drives

CD/DVD Drives

CD/DVD Writers

Optical Media

Flash Media

NAS/RAID

SSD

Buffalo Tech

QNAP

RunCore

Please mind