Question about my External SATA harddrive

[jayxl14]

Hey guys, I have a eSATA/USB External hard drive (Cavalry, 500GB).

I'm wondering if there's any way to make it plug-and-play with the SATA cable? 'Cause I leave my hard drive off except for when I absolutely need it. I'd prefer to use it with eSATA, but it requires a restart, unlike the USB cable, which works as soon as I turn the hard drive on.

Is there any way to make the hard drive work with the eSATA cable without restarting? Or is it something that I can do nothing about.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Try going into device manager, right-click on "computer", then click on scan for hardware changes. This works for me.

 

[jayxl14]

That's a good idea.. so it basically refreshes and then notices the SATA harddrive?

Is there any way for it to be plug-n-play, or is that exclusive to USB? If it is, then obviously my problem isn't a problem.

Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

Sorry for the late reply. As far as I know, your mobo's chipset has to support hot swap as well as your external hard drive enclosure.

Some people have said that installing the newest RST driver has fixed it for them, but didn't seem to make a differene to me.

Assuming you've got an intel chipset, here is the link.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Rapid+Storage+Technology+%28Intel%C2%AE+RST%29

 

[Paperdoc]

Hot swap support in the chipset must be part of this, as suggested. My system with an ASUS board a few years old has a Silicon Image chip providing the eSATA port. My external (eSATA and USM2 connection options, eSATA in use; drive unit inside is SATA II) does exactly what you want. I leave it off most of the time - it's for backup. If I turn on its power switch, My Computer finds it in a few seconds and adds it to the display so it's available. If I later turn off its switch, My Computer shows it suddenly gone.

 

[jayxl14]

This is my mobo..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157167&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3463938&SID=

And my CPU..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808&cm_re=black_edition-_-19-103-808-_-Product

Please let me know, thanks!

 

[jayxl14]

Anyone..?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Your board uses an AMD chipset, so the RST driver will not work for you. Sorry, I'm out of options. Hopefully the "scan for new hardware" works for you.

Your Chipsets:
North Bridge AMD 785G
South Bridge AMD SB710

 

[jayxl14]

So basically I just have to restart my computer if I want to use the eSATA harddrive?

And, well, the "Scan for new hardware" works sometimes.. And I say sometimes because if I have one program open, like my media player, it freezes my computer (and I have a powerful computer, I would say).

And even if I have nothing running, it still freezes sometimes..

Any help is appreciated. Thanks