New esata causes windows failure.....help!

[illustr8r]

Hi,

I just bought an external hard drive enclosure (vantec: nexstar 3 model#NST-360SU-BK) with usb 2.0 & esata. I put a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM in it.

When I use the usb, the drive is recognized in windows and I can transfer data on and off of it. I also tried plugging the drive directly into the motherboard via standard sata cable and it works that way.

I tried to install the esata port into an empty slot in my case. [ The enclosure came with an included pci port/cable that I connected to one of the sata ports on my motherboard. ]

PROBLEM: when I plug in the drive via esata, windows (xp pro) fails to boot up properly. It gets to the screen where I can see the windows logo and then it just freezes.

Is my motherboard not compatible with this esata to sata cable that was bundled with the enclosure?

Do I need a esata pci card rather than just the port/cable thing?

Am I missing an important driver or something?

Is it a windows problem?

Is my enclosure defective?

...........I can't figure it out, please help!

Thanks

 

[Samstoned]

is this the only sata you have on the machine
did you try to boot plugged in and powered off
check you bios for disable on boot errors try untick the errors cept for key board mouse
if this is the only sata you have to load drivers for sata channel chip on MB
if you have 4 channels 2 setup for normal 2 setup for raid??? on some machines
all else fails take drive out and load to 1st free sata channel plug

 

[illustr8r]

I tried booting plugged in with external enclosure power on and off. It does the same freeezing thing either way. If I have it unplugged windows will open. I tried plugging it in after windows opens, it is not recognized and nothing else happens either.

I have 1 internal sata already in the machine with windows installed on it that I have been using as my primary drive for a while. The external I want to use for backup and transfering between work and home.

I'll have to look in bios for the error thing you mentioned.

Another thing is... I can't find any hard drives in bios (phoenix award v6.00). All I can find is my dvd drive, floppy drive etc. ...and a raid controller menu. Do you have any idea why I wouldn't see my drives anywhere (even my primary drive that I know works) ? I tried looking through as many menus and sub menus as I could and still couldn't find it. What menu should I find this info in?


I only have two places on my motherboard to plug in sata cables.

 

[Samstoned]

I would remove the drive totaly from enclosure
and try straight to board with standard connections using the machines power also
let me get my intel bios profile see if it shows my sata's

 

[kirock]

I'm pretty sure you have to configure the esata port through the OEM software to enable single drive, RAID or JBOD. Maybe by default it's set to RAID you only have a single drive so Window's is confused.

 

[Samstoned]

my sata show's up in boot
in advanced settings my default is ide priority
raid disabled
I don't boot to the sata anymore
this sounds like a raid issue
to make last post clear
I meant the config for testing only
my bios is ami 8.0.10 on intel design board

 

[illustr8r]

I guess I may not have been clear in my first post, but I had tried to connect the drive directly to the mb via standard sata cables and it does work that way. It also works with the usb 2.0 connection. It's just the esata that buggers things up.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but here's some more info:

motherboard: chaintech vnf3-250 nvidia nforce 3 250 chipset ddr 400
amd socket 754 athlon 64

kirock: you mentioned configuring through the OEM software. I'm going to have to admit my ignorance on this. I'm not sure what OEM means. The hard drive didn't come with any software, the enclosure just came with usb drivers. What software do I need?

 

[kirock]

OEM=Original Equipment manufacturer
What I've read about esata is how it works to connect mulitple sata drives into one sata channel. This is done as RAID0, RAID1 or RAID10 in most cases and also JBOD (just a bunch of disks). So I'm thinking if you have just 1 HDD in the case then there must be some set-up needed to tell it to use single or JBOD. I assumed the unit came with software.

Looking at the NexStar 3 unit it seems the esata could only be used in a RAID configuration becasue it only has 1 bay inside. so esata would by default assume you want to "raid" with your other HDD.

So Sam's statement:"it sounds like a Raid issue" seems to be correct.
Here's the document is was reading about esata before:Manual

Cheers.

 

[Zed___]

Same problem here

I've got the same problem!!!!!!!!
- I was using a 120GB Western Digital sata drive (3rd drive)
- bought the vantec enclosure and put the 120GB WD into it
- enclosure works with USB cable
- enclosure dowsn't work with eSATA cable (if turned on before boot, it causes bios/POST to hang) ... (if turned on after winXP boots, no drive shows up)
- tried to detect HD from bios, bios froze

System
- MSI Neo4-F MoBo (bios updated last week)
- 2 other Sata drives

check out this thread to see if it makes sense ...
http://support.microsoft.com/newsgr...&tid=2facd96e-8e8c-4520-a0f8-b5a9a74b5c97&p=1

 

[fozzy]

did anyone get this resolved? I've got the same mobo and vantec enclosure and would really like to use the e-sata interface instead of USB 2.0...

thx
Fozzy

 

[fozzy]

bump...

still looking for a solution to this...