Fantom drive on Gateway FX6800 external esata Win7

[bhusman]

I upgraded the Gateway desktop to Windows 7 Ultimate. Everything was identified and seemed fine. I then bought a 1TB external Fantom Green Drive with both USB and sata connections. I then bought a straight sata cable and plugged it in. It didn't recognize it. Rebooted system with it plugged in and still no drive. Unplugged sata cable and plugged it into USB port and it immediately recognized it. It's nice that it works, but I'm looking for faster speed by using the external sata ports on the Gateway. Has anyone heard of this problem or where to find an answer?

Thanks

 

[r_manic]

While Windows may install drivers automatically for your hardware (very convenient, that feature), you might wanna check Device Manager to see if no yellow question remarks remain. If there are none, try downloading your mobo driver hardware from the manufacturer's website, and install over what you have now.

 

[bhusman]

MOBO is Gateway private label. No instructions or new drivers for Windows 7 even mentioned. Has anyone had any luck with using a flash from another MOBO to make the external SATA ports work?

 

[dan_sundin]

External SATA ports get defined upon bootup. It is the second BIOS POST screen to appear.

I think it was titled by something like Jmason.

Sorry, but my system is back at the company who did the referbish work (a subcontractor of Gateway/Acer). When it is returned, I capture the series of screens necessary to configure.

 

[bhusman]

External SATA ports get defined upon bootup. It is the second BIOS POST screen to appear.

I think it was titled by something like Jmason.

Sorry, but my system is back at the company who did the referbish work (a subcontractor of Gateway/Acer). When it is returned, I capture the series of screens necessary to configure.

Would happen to know the name and item I'm suppose to change in this second BIOS screen?

Also, do you know if there is a manual way to change this Jmason file?

Thanks for your time,

Britt

 

[dan_sundin]

Would happen to know the name and item I'm suppose to change in this second BIOS screen?

Also, do you know if there is a manual way to change this Jmason file?

Thanks for your time,

Britt

Sorry it took a while to get back.

The first screen you are presented is the Gateway Boot/Setup screen, allow for this to time out.

You are next presented with the " PXE LAN boot screen " as

Initializing Intel(R) Boot Agent GE v1.3.24
PXE 2.1 build 086 (WfM 2.0)
Press Ctrl+S to enter the Setup Menu.

(Here, since none of us are booting via a LAN, you have the ability to disable this feature by using the Setup Menu. It saves time, every boot cycle, so I would recommend that you turn it off).

Next, you are presented (the third screen), with the option for your computer to recognize the presence of an " eSATA " device plugged into the ports on the exterior rear of the computer chassis.

You do need to have an external eSata drive, and I recommend that it is mounted in an external drive housing. My choice is one with dual or triple interface (USB, eSata, and IEEE-1394[Firewire]), it will have an external power supply. Use an eSATA cable to connect to the rear of the computer. When connected and detected during the boot sequence, the drive will be recognized and become available to the BIOS, and/or, the Operating System. You really don't need anything else. The screen looks like this.


JMicron Technology Corp. PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller BIOSv1.06.65
Copyright (C) 2005 JMicron Technology. http://www.jmicron.com

--- Next comes the detection phase

If the drive is present, you would receive a prompt like:

HDD0: Maxtor 7Y250M0 251 GB

Press any key to continue . . .

During the detection phase, you get the following prompt, instead of the one above:

Detecting drives, please wait . . . (here there is a text based spinning symbol).

There are timers associated with is step, which will allow for detection for about 30 seconds.

----- At this point, you either have a working eSATA device or not.

You can now go into BIOS and find the device to allow you to boot from it (which I would not suggest you do). You can setup as a RAID device, as the necessary screens will be shown.

I didn't try it out, but, this eSATA device would be allowed to be mounted and un-mounted, therefore it can be removed from operation on your computer, without requiring a reboot.

--------- Lack of any documentation

Again, Gateway didn't provide any substantial documentation on this subject. The system house, who wrote the interface (JMicron Technology Corp.) doesn't provide documentation, as it is up to the Motherboard company, who integrated this facility, to provide their own documentation, in regards to features, and functions (shame on you Gateway, 50 lashes with a wet noodle).


I'll find a detailed set of documentation that I accumulated on this subject and provide you photos, links to reference info.

-------- My Gateway FX6800 when back to Refurb heaven, therefore I won't have any further contribution on this subject. I won't be getting a third box, but have my money refunded.

 

[dan_sundin]

Secondary Resource on the subject:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=33519707

I made some detailed observations on this site. These links get you into the area to where my contributed are located:


http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=35073360

-- and --

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=35073687

 

[dan_sundin]

Screen captures and descriptive information related to the Gateway FX6800-01e has been put into two documents:

http://sites.google.com/site/sundinshare/eSATASetup.docx?attredirects=0&d=1
(which is a Microsoft Word 2007 document)

http://sites.google.com/site/sundinshare/eSATA.xps?attredirects=0&d=1
(which is a Microsoft XPS document, their version of PDF)

 

[garyraymond28]

Just wanted to say thank you for your posting. Helped me solve my problems which were similar to yours.
GaryR