Question Need help with eSATA card with Port Multiplier.

[HDavidF2]

Have been using an IOCrest SI-PEX40065, with FIS Port Multiplier (Marvell 92xx chipset) to run 4 HDDs in a Mediasonic ProBox via eSATA interface. It worked before with my previous ASUS P8Z68 MB running both Win7 and later Win10. But it hasn't worked right since I upgraded to the present ASUS Prime B360 Plus motherboard and 8th Gen Intel i5 CPU.

The drivers for the card seem to have been installed correctly as seen in Device Manager (says Working Properly). But, the controller card does not show up in the MB BIOS during system boot, the card's BIOS does not display like it previously did following the POST,

and Windows 10 Pro (version 1903) does not load if there are any drives powered up in the ProBox. It just hangs.

So far, the only way I've been able to get it to work is the following: (1). Power the ProBox ON only after Win10 is up and running but with no drives present, then (2). plug in one drive at a time.

After the first drive is plugged in, Disk Manager shows that the drive is online and working, and it shows that the other three drives are missing. As each of the other 3 drives are plugged in, they all seem to be working fine and they show up in Windows Explorer. All of this seems to indicate that the IOCrest controller card, it's FIS port multiplier and the MediaSonic ProBox are working fine.

I suspect that the problem has something to do with the fact that the controller card's BIOS does not get started prior to Windows 10 startup. In any event, I'm not able to see the controller card's BIOS display even if it is being started.

Can anyone help me with this problem?

 

[Lutfij]

Maybe see if disabling Fast Boot in BIOS helps. You can also see if CSM is enabled in BIOS.

 

[HDavidF2]

Have been using an IOCrest SI-PEX40065, with FIS Port Multiplier (Marvell 92xx chipset) to run 4 HDDs in a Mediasonic ProBox via eSATA interface. It worked before with my previous ASUS P8Z68 MB running both Win7 and later Win10. But it hasn't worked right since I upgraded to the present ASUS Prime B360 Plus motherboard and 8th Gen Intel i5 CPU.

The drivers for the card seem to have been installed correctly as seen in Device Manager (says Working Properly). But, the controller card does not show up in the MB BIOS during system boot, the card's BIOS does not display like it previously did following the POST,

and Windows 10 Pro (version 1903) does not load if there are any drives powered up in the ProBox. It just hangs.

So far, the only way I've been able to get it to work is the following: (1). Power the ProBox ON only after Win10 is up and running but with no drives present, then (2). plug in one drive at a time.

After the first drive is plugged in, Disk Manager shows that the drive is online and working, and it shows that the other three drives are missing. As each of the other 3 drives are plugged in, they all seem to be working fine and they show up in Windows Explorer. All of this seems to indicate that the IOCrest controller card, it's FIS port multiplier and the MediaSonic ProBox are working fine.

I suspect that the problem has something to do with the fact that the controller card's BIOS does not get started prior to Windows 10 startup. In any event, I'm not able to see the controller card's BIOS display even if it is being started.

Can anyone help me with this problem?

Maybe see if disabling Fast Boot in BIOS helps. You can also see if CSM is enabled in BIOS.

Fast Boot was already disabled. CSM was not enabled, so I enabled that. But that didn't help.

It took a long time, but the system did boot with just one drive present. Tried it again with 2 drives. The system eventually did boot, but it said that the drives (actually two spanned dynamic drives) had failed. Turned the ProBox OFF and then ON, with just one drive present. That worked as before. Then plugged in the other 3 drives, one by one, and Windows 10 recognized and started them all. Then both pairs of spanned dynamic drives showed up in Windows Explorer as before.

Which means that we need to look deeper for a solution to my problem.