Crosshair III eSATA question

[Kraizk]

I currently have a Crosshair III Mother Board and have bought Thermal Take BlacX Duet Hard drive Dock. Upon opening it said that in order for both drives to function on ESATA my port had to support the Port Multiplier function. For some reason i can not find the answer to this anywhere, looking for any help possible.

 

[505090]

a quick search found this thread, it appears you can not use the intel sata ports no big deal most boards have two or more sata controllers and you have to be in AHCI mode not IDE also a simple fix. if those two things don't work follow the thread i only read the first page
http://forums.overclockersclub.com/?showtopic=173282

 

[Kraizk]

I am embarrassed to say I am in IDE mode, i figured my motherboard would have just left in in AHCI. THis next part of my question goes out to anyone who has switched to AHCI mid operating system. I changed the two values in the registry to allow for AHCI installation, and changed the BIOS. When I then load into windows i can tell it is installing new hardware but then i get DCOM and Plug and Play services terminating unexpectedly and a forced reboot, even when i disable automatic restart on system failure. Does this mean I have to reformat or is there something else I can do?

 

[505090]

i forget the process but I've switched xp and win 7 to ahci without ever touching the registry a google search should provide some guides

 

[Kraizk]

The only results google showed were the registry entries, I will keep looking, I really appreciate your help

 

[505090]

I went and looked again, guess i did change the registry. Sorry it was a long time ago i forgot.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29976834/ahcisataide.aspx

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244840-32-convert-sata-ahci-vista

 

[Kraizk]

See i follow those instructions and its a no go, I get DCOM Services was unexpectedly terminated as well as Plug and Play Unexpectedly Terminated forcing me to reboot. It becomes a loop until i switch back to IDE

 

[505090]

what version of windows are you using

 

[Kraizk]

Windows 7 Business x64, a strange note that may be causing confusion on my os, Windows Boot Manager somehow managed to be moved to another HDD

 

[Kraizk]

Basicaly to clarify, the OS is on a hard drive (C) but for some reason for the OS to boot Hard drive (E) has to be plugged in. IF it is not i am told that BootMGR is missing. I do no run a raid obviously (or at least i think its obvious) because it is stuck in IDE mode and the two hard drives may both be seagate but differ in size and model (if the old RAID rules are true). I think im going to have to go down the formatting path because of some start up issues i had before i tried modifying anything, which from the limited knowledge i have may be caused by this weird breakup in windows files. Any advice would be appreciated, i would prefer to avoid reformatting... Sorry this thread has turned into so much more.

 

[505090]

well the first thing i would do is disconnect all but the os drive once that one works start adding them back in one at a time

 

[Kraizk]

That is exactly how I found out the issue existed. Glad to know I went the right direction

 

[505090]

keep on it, i'm heading out of town for a few days so good luck. Post your result I'll check when I get back.

 

[Kraizk]

I formatted with ahci enabled and did a fresh install of 7. somehow it still reads my drives as IDE, i am at a loss