connecting an eSATA hard drive

[Guest]

My notebook has an eSATA port but there's no documentation on how to use it.
Connecting a drive to this port elicits no action from the notebook; plug and
play does nothing.

However, the drive can be added using the Disk Management utility on the
control panel. The down side is I can find no way of removing the drive
short of rebooting and removing the drive prior to XP starting up. I've
tried turning of caching but XP still hangs whenever any software tries to
find the drive that was there. So this is an unworkable solution for a
notebook in my mind.

I can find noting on the Microsoft website mentioning eSATA. Ditto for the
notebook manaufacturer.

So am I missing somethings or is this just another great idea that has not
yet been really been fully implemented by Microsoft/OEMs?

 

[dobey]

Is the drive formatted?

If not you will need to use Disk Management to format first.

Usually the "Safely Remove Hardware Icon" appears when you plug in an eSATA
drive.

Having said that when I try to use "Safely Remove hardware" with my eSATA, I
get a message about another process using it. I usually just turn off the
drive or unplug it.

Provided you have finished copying your files, and haven't set any running
program to use that drive, defrag etc it's not usually a problem.

 

[Guest]

As with desktop pcs,notebook being the same,a SATA hd must be configured
in the BIOS,by default the SATA controller is disabled.Set the BIOS to use
both IDE & SATA,youre pc user manual will give more info.

 

[Anna]

My notebook has an eSATA port but there's no documentation on how to use
it.
Connecting a drive to this port elicits no action from the notebook; plug
and
play does nothing.

However, the drive can be added using the Disk Management utility on the
control panel. The down side is I can find no way of removing the drive
short of rebooting and removing the drive prior to XP starting up. I've
tried turning of caching but XP still hangs whenever any software tries to
find the drive that was there. So this is an unworkable solution for a
notebook in my mind.

I can find noting on the Microsoft website mentioning eSATA. Ditto for
the
notebook manaufacturer.

So am I missing somethings or is this just another great idea that has not
yet been really been fully implemented by Microsoft/OEMs?

BeasleyM:
1. Specifically, how are you connecting your SATA external HDD to the eSATA
port on your notebook? Are you using an external eSATA enclosure or just a
bare drive?

2. We'll assume if you're using an eSATA external enclosure it's
non-defective. And we'll similarly assume the enclosed SATA HDD is likewise
non-defective.

3. When you say "the drive can be added using the Disk Management utility on
the control panel.", you're really referring to the XP Disk Management
utility, aren't you, not the "Disk drives" section in the Control Panel,
right? I assume the drive is listed in the latter, right?

4. So when you say "the drive can be added..." I take it you're indicating
that you were able to assign a drive letter to the device because one was
not originally shown? Or what are you indicating when you say "the drive can
be added..."?

5. If this is truly a situation where you have a SATA-to-SATA data
connection through the eSATA port on your notebook, the system will treat
that drive as a "normal" *internal* HDD, just like any other internally
connected fixed HDD in your system. Exactly the same.

So it's really not clear (at least to me) exactly what your problem is with
this drive. Presumably it's "hot-pluggable" & "hot swappable", roughly
similar to a USB external HDD. There is no need to "turn off write caching".
The "Enable write caching on the disk" item in Control Panel is ordinarily
checked for this device. Just treat the eSATA external HDD as if it is a
fixed, internal HDD with the added advantages of being "hot-pluggable" &
"hot swappable" as previously noted. This provides substantial advantages
over a USB external HDD in that its performance is substantially superior
and it is a *bootable* device.

BTW, I would be interested in learning the make/model of your notebook.
Anna

 

[Bill Drake]

Hi, BeasleyM. First of all , it is completely normal to have to
use the Disk Management Utility to partition and format the
drive when first installed. The drive comes unformatted from
the manufacturer, so the steps you took to get the drive
recognized by Windows are completely normal and correct.

However, once the drive can be "seen" by Windows - it is
automatically mounted at startup or whenever the drive is
connected to the system. Again, this is normal and correct.

Regardless of the above, there are issues with *any* external
drive that is seen by Windows as equivalent-to-an-internal
hard-disk when you try to *disconnect* the drive from the system
while Windows is still running. This is also normal and correct,
as there are specific housekeeping functions which *must* be
performed before any equivalent-to-an-internal-hard-disk drive
can be unmounted.

Things to check:

1. Windows XP will automatically add USB, Firewire or eSATA disks
to the list of drives monitored by System Restore. This plays
merry hob with the ability to remove the drive while Windows is
running. Go to Control Panel/System/System Restore and untick
the external drive from the list of drives that System Restore is
using.

Note: Changing system parameters will cause System Restore
to automatically add any external drive back onto the list
of drives that System Restore monitors. Personally, I find
this a complete PITA, and I routinely disable System
Restore as a result. However, this means I am then utterly
dependent on *other* means of recovering from driver or
software install problems. I use Ghost for backups to take
the place of System Restore. I do NOT recommend disabling
System Restore if you do not have a reliable and proven
backup strategy in place before you disable System Restore.

2. Norton Utilities Protected Recycle Bin automatically adds its
monitoring functions to any equivalent-to-an-internal-hard-disk
drive added to the system. This includes USB, Firewire and
eSATA external hard disks. In order for the drive to be removable
while the system is running, the Protected Recycle Bin support
must be disabled for the external hard disk.

Fortunately, the Norton Utilities Protected Recycle Bin is a little
smarter than Windows System Restore. Once you disable this
beast for the selected drive-letter - it *stays* disabled. To make
this change, right-click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties and
remove the checkmark on the appropriate drive letter so that
the Norton Recycle Bin enhancements are disabled for that drive
letter. Leave the enhancements enabled for all permanently
installed Hard Disks.

With the above modifications in place, you should then be able to use
the "Safely Remove Hardware" item in your System Tray to properly
dismount the eSATA Hard Disk while Windows is running.

Note: I have found that there are times when Windows does not
properly respond to the first request to dismount the target
drive letter. If this happens, try again. Recent Windows
updates have improved this particular glitch, so this may not
occur for you - but I have had long periods where I had to
tell Windows to dismount the drive, accept the first failure and
then tell Windows to dismount the drive a second time before
the "Safe to remove Hardware" item would appear in my
System Tray.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill

 

[Anna]

Anna responds...
BeasleyM:
1. Specifically, how are you connecting your SATA external HDD to the eSATA
port on your notebook? Are you using an external eSATA enclosure or just a
bare drive?

2. We'll assume if you're using an eSATA external enclosure it's
non-defective. And we'll similarly assume the enclosed SATA HDD is likewise
non-defective.

3. When you say "the drive can be added using the Disk Management utility on
the control panel.", you're really referring to the XP Disk Management
utility, aren't you, not the "Disk drives" section in the Control Panel,
right? I assume the drive is listed in the latter, right?

4. So when you say "the drive can be added..." I take it you're indicating
that you were able to assign a drive letter to the device because one was
not originally shown? Or what are you indicating when you say "the drive can
be added..."?

5. If this is truly a situation where you have a SATA-to-SATA data
connection through the eSATA port on your notebook, the system will treat
that drive as a "normal" *internal* HDD, just like any other internally
connected fixed HDD in your system. Exactly the same.

So it's really not clear (at least to me) exactly what your problem is with
this drive. Presumably it's "hot-pluggable" & "hot swappable", roughly
similar to a USB external HDD. There is no need to "turn off write caching".
The "Enable write caching on the disk" item in Control Panel is ordinarily
checked for this device. Just treat the eSATA external HDD as if it is a
fixed, internal HDD with the added advantages of being "hot-pluggable" &
"hot swappable" as previously noted. This provides substantial advantages
over a USB external HDD in that its performance is substantially superior
and it is a *bootable* device.

BTW, I would be interested in learning the make/model of your notebook.
Anna

Hi, BeasleyM. First of all , it is completely normal to have to
use the Disk Management Utility to partition and format the
drive when first installed. The drive comes unformatted from
the manufacturer, so the steps you took to get the drive
recognized by Windows are completely normal and correct.

However, once the drive can be "seen" by Windows - it is
automatically mounted at startup or whenever the drive is
connected to the system. Again, this is normal and correct.

Regardless of the above, there are issues with *any* external
drive that is seen by Windows as equivalent-to-an-internal
hard-disk when you try to *disconnect* the drive from the system
while Windows is still running. This is also normal and correct,
as there are specific housekeeping functions which *must* be
performed before any equivalent-to-an-internal-hard-disk drive
can be unmounted.

Things to check:

1. Windows XP will automatically add USB, Firewire or eSATA disks
to the list of drives monitored by System Restore. This plays
merry hob with the ability to remove the drive while Windows is
running. Go to Control Panel/System/System Restore and untick
the external drive from the list of drives that System Restore is
using.

Note: Changing system parameters will cause System Restore
to automatically add any external drive back onto the list
of drives that System Restore monitors. Personally, I find
this a complete PITA, and I routinely disable System
Restore as a result. However, this means I am then utterly
dependent on *other* means of recovering from driver or
software install problems. I use Ghost for backups to take
the place of System Restore. I do NOT recommend disabling
System Restore if you do not have a reliable and proven
backup strategy in place before you disable System Restore.

2. Norton Utilities Protected Recycle Bin automatically adds its
monitoring functions to any equivalent-to-an-internal-hard-disk
drive added to the system. This includes USB, Firewire and
eSATA external hard disks. In order for the drive to be removable
while the system is running, the Protected Recycle Bin support
must be disabled for the external hard disk.

Fortunately, the Norton Utilities Protected Recycle Bin is a little
smarter than Windows System Restore. Once you disable this
beast for the selected drive-letter - it *stays* disabled. To make
this change, right-click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties and
remove the checkmark on the appropriate drive letter so that
the Norton Recycle Bin enhancements are disabled for that drive
letter. Leave the enhancements enabled for all permanently
installed Hard Disks.

With the above modifications in place, you should then be able to use
the "Safely Remove Hardware" item in your System Tray to properly
dismount the eSATA Hard Disk while Windows is running.

Note: I have found that there are times when Windows does not
properly respond to the first request to dismount the target
drive letter. If this happens, try again. Recent Windows
updates have improved this particular glitch, so this may not
occur for you - but I have had long periods where I had to
tell Windows to dismount the drive, accept the first failure and
then tell Windows to dismount the drive a second time before
the "Safe to remove Hardware" item would appear in my
System Tray.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill

Bill's comments as they apply to the "hot-plugging" capability of SATA HDDs
are not entirely correct, and I will get to that in a moment.

However, he *is* correct when he indicates that the SATA HDD must be
partitioned & formatted before it can be "seen" in the system as a
functioning HDD. I had assumed that the OP was working with a commercial
eSATA HDD which had been partitioned/formatted by the manufacturer of the
eSATA enclosure. I also assumed the OP was aware of this requirement. It is
possible the OP had purchased an eSATA HDD and had installed a new SATA HDD
in that device and failed to partition/format it. His or her post is unclear
re this. So conceivably this may account for his/her problem.

Now as to Bill's other comments re the functioning of a SATA HDD in the
system as related to its "hot plugging" capability.

1. It's a safe presumption I would think that the SATA HDD in question is a
SATA-II (SATA-IO) HDD and not an older SATA I HDD. I mention this because my
comments will apply to SATA II HDDs. Some SATA I HDDs did not have
"hot-plugging" (or "hot-swapping") capability although I have to add that
we've worked with many SATA I HDDs and virtually all had this capability.
However, SATA I HDDs were not *required* to meet this specification.

2. However, all SATA-II HDDs, by specification, have "hot-plugging"
capability. The other part of the equation is that the motherboard must also
support this capability. Virtually every motherboard that I'm aware of
manufactured over the past few years meets this specification.

3. The fact that a motherboard comes equipped with an eSATA port - as
apparently is the case with the OP's notebook - is "ipso facto" evidence
that the "hot-plugging" capability is supported by the system.

4. In any event, the OP's external SATA HDD installed in an eSATA external
enclosure is "hot-pluggable". Presumably the OP is using (or intends to use)
the device as a secondary HDD for backup/storage purposes. However, as I
indicated in my original post to the OP, the SATA HDD is potentially
bootable with an XP OS
installed on it.

5. There are certain similarities between this external eSATA HDD and a USB
external HDD in that each is "hot-pluggable". With specific respect to the
eSATA external HDD, there is no need to invoke any "Safely Remove Hardware"
icon when removing the drive from the system. As a matter of fact with most
motherboards the SRH icon will *not* even appear with reference to a
SATA-connected HDD since the system basically treats the SATA-connected HDD
(SATA or eSATA) as an internal HDD.

The bottom line in all this is that the user can safely disconnect an eSATA
HDD from a running system without invoking any special procedure. In this
respect the process is similar to a USB external HDD. Similarly, an eSATA
HDD can be connected to the system while the system is running. In either
case there will be no physical damage to the disk nor will there be any loss
or corruption of data as some consequence of this "hot plugging" capability
in all normal situations.
Anna

 

[Bill Drake]

Hi, Anna. As far as I am aware, if a drive shows up in the
"Safely Remove Hardware" list - then by definition it is using
write-caching - which requires both a write-cache-disable
routine, a *confirmation of write-cache-disable* and a
notification from windows that there is nothing left in the
windows-cache-buffers for that device - before the drive
can be safely removed from the system.

Note: See MSKB 811392 for more information on this subject.
The article is written for Windows 2000, but it is germane
to Windows XP as well.

The problems with proper shutdown you mention that occurred
with early SATA drives were not limited to SATA drives. They
also occurred with PATA drives.

The problem was most notorious with the HighPoint Technologies
HPT366 RAID controller - which would corrupt the filesystem on
shutdown because the driver would permit the system to shut
down even though the drive had not yet returned the "confirmation
of valid write-cache-disable" response.

To use this controller safely, it was necessary to use Hard Disks
with firmware which properly compensated for this problem with
the HPT366 RAID controller hardware, BIOS insert, and driver.

When I finally traced down what was going on with this problem
and made the deficiency public - many of the hard disks that
caused problems with the HPT366 got firmware updates - and
those very same drives now work reliably with the HPT366.

SATA was in its *very* early stages when all the above was
finally put to rest. Nowadays, all drives (whether SATA or
PATA is immaterial) are properly tested with RAID controllers
to ensure the drives properly respond to the cache-flush
command and properly *report* whether the write-cache-disable
was successful or not.

Note: The problem was not limited to PATA or SATA - this
problem goes all the way back to the days of SCSI.
I saw this problem with SCSI drives when I was
researching and debugging SCSI disk instability as
well - and again firmware and sometimes hardware
updates were required to solve the problem.

5. There are certain similarities between this external
eSATA HDD and a USB external HDD in that each is
"hot-pluggable". With specific respect to the eSATA
external HDD, there is no need to invoke any "Safely
Remove Hardware" icon when removing the drive from
the system. As a matter of fact with most motherboards
the SRH icon will *not* even appear with reference to a
SATA-connected HDD since the system basically treats
the SATA-connected HDD (SATA or eSATA) as an
internal HDD.

Again, as far as I am aware, because an eSATA drive (like a
USB or Firewire drive) will have its write-caching enabled when
Windows decides to use it as an "equivalent-to-an-internal-hard
-disk" device - it is mandatory to issue a cache-write-disable
command and receive a valid cache-write-disable-confirmed
response from the drive before it is safe to dismount the disk.

The only way it is safe to dismount the disk *without* requiring
the use of the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon is if the
write-cache for that disk is *disabled* from-the-get-go and
the user is very careful to ensure that the disk-access light is
out and all disk-writes are complete before disconnecting the
drive.

Now, it is possible that *some* eSATA, USB or Firewire
implementations are done with write-cache-disabled by default.
However, that it no way means that *all* eSATA, USB or Firewire
implementations are done that way. If something shows up in the
"Safely Remove Hardware" list - then that is Windows' way of
saying that item has write-caching enabled and it is NOT safe
to remove the item until the "Safe to Remove Hardware" balloon
appears after the user tells Windows they wish to dismount that
device.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill

 

[Anna]

Bill:
I can only repeat what I previously posted re this issue in terms of our
rather extensive experience with SATA/eSATA HDDs over the past three years
or so...

1. In only a small minority of cases involving a rather small minority of
motherboards will the Safely Remove Hardware icon even appear when a
SATA/eSATA HDD (internal or external) is connected in the system. In most
cases the SRH icon will *not* appear.

2. And if & when that SRH icon does appear with respect to an external
SATA/eSATA HDD, it need not be accessed/invoked when disconnecting that
drive from the system. There will be no data loss nor data corruption nor
physical damage to the disk in that instance. At least none that we've ever
encountered working with every major brand of SATA-II disks in a wide
variety of systems supporting the SATA-II 3 Gb/s data interface (see below).
For all intents & purposes the SRH icon and its process is irrelevant in
this situation.

3. Again, my comments are in reference to SATA-II (SATA-IO) HDDs meeting the
"hot pluggable" "hot-swappable" specifications as SATA-II HDDs do. While our
experience with SATA-I drives parallels that with our experience with
SATA-II HDDs, SATA-I HDDs were not required to meet that specification. And
our experience with SATA-I HDDs in this situation has been quite limited as
compared with our experience with SATA-II HDDs.

4. Our experience with a fairly wide variety of motherboards meeting the
SATA-II 3 Gb/s data interface indicate that every such motherboard meets
those "hot-pluggable" "hot-swappable" specifications. Again, this is based
upon our experience with those motherboards.

For all intents & purposes an external SATA-II HDD (SATA or eSATA) connected
in a system supporting the 3 Gb/s SATA data interface can be treated just
like a USB external HDD in terms of connecting/disconnecting the device in &
from the system without any special treatment. It is, in that sense, a
"hot-pluggable" device. There is no need to invoke the SRH icon in the event
that icon does appear nor is there any need for any special command or
process in this regard.
Anna