External drive - SATA to USB?

[RF]

I have some serious trouble with a 750 GB Seagate external drive that I
have attached to my computer. The drive
has a SATA connection to a mini circuit board in the external case,
which is connected to the computer via the
usual USB cable. No instructions came with the unit and the CD has a
Readme file listing the various
files, none of which is any use, as far as I can tell.

When I first installed it, I used the mini CD provided but Win2K SP4
could not find a suitable driver
on the CD. Eventually, it found a file: USBSTOR.SYS in WINNT, and
installed it as the driver. It then
worked fine until I had to reboot the computer.

With the external HD connected to the computer, every time I booted it
hung at the BIOS window and went
no further. I had to pull out the USB cable of the external drive and
reboot. I reinstalled the USB cable
but it did not recognize the connection, so I had to switch the external
drive off and on. (not
recommended). It then recognized the external drive and installed
USBSTOR.SYS.

The computer uses USB 2.0 and the CD has a long list of drivers but,
when I direct the search there, it
finds nothing. This external drive was bought from Geeks and most of the
OSs mentioned in the Readme
were Win98!!!!

I changed some BIOS settings and the computer would then boot ok but it
did not find the external drive,
until I switched it off and on. Then it would work ok, until I had to
shutdown or reboot the computer.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem? The Intel motherboard has no
SATA connections and no Sata driver
has been installed.

Do any SATA drives work via USB?

TIA

RF

 

[peter]

You should treat the drive like it was an external USB connected drive
,which it is.The circuitry inside the Case is doing the change over.When you
plug the drive in and then turn it on OS should recognise the fact that
there now is a USB device connected and give the drive a drive letter...if
you have formatted the drive it should be visible under Windows Explorer.If
your external case has an external power source to turn the drive on/off it
really does no harm.
I use a HD in an external case that I can connect either USB or E-SATA...the
computer does not see the drive until I power the case on when connected via
USB.I boot with the unit connected but not powered...I turn it on when I
wish to back up stuff.
hope this was helpful
peter

 

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local good product.

 

[meerkat]

I have some serious trouble with a 750 GB Seagate external drive that I
have attached to my computer. The drive
has a SATA connection to a mini circuit board in the external case,
which is connected to the computer via the
usual USB cable. No instructions came with the unit and the CD has a
Readme file listing the various
files, none of which is any use, as far as I can tell.

When I first installed it, I used the mini CD provided but Win2K SP4
could not find a suitable driver
on the CD. Eventually, it found a file: USBSTOR.SYS in WINNT, and
installed it as the driver. It then
worked fine until I had to reboot the computer.

With the external HD connected to the computer, every time I booted it
hung at the BIOS window and went
no further. I had to pull out the USB cable of the external drive and
reboot. I reinstalled the USB cable
but it did not recognize the connection, so I had to switch the
external drive off and on. (not
recommended). It then recognized the external drive and installed
USBSTOR.SYS.

The computer uses USB 2.0 and the CD has a long list of drivers but,
when I direct the search there, it
finds nothing. This external drive was bought from Geeks and most of
the OSs mentioned in the Readme
were Win98!!!!

I changed some BIOS settings and the computer would then boot ok but
it did not find the external drive,
until I switched it off and on. Then it would work ok, until I had to
shutdown or reboot the computer.

Boot the OS `Before` you switch on the external !.

 

[RF]

You should treat the drive like it was an external USB connected drive
,which it is.The circuitry inside the Case is doing the change over.When
you plug the drive in and then turn it on OS should recognise the fact
that there now is a USB device connected and give the drive a drive
letter...if you have formatted the drive it should be visible under
Windows Explorer.If your external case has an external power source to
turn the drive on/off it really does no harm.
I use a HD in an external case that I can connect either USB or
E-SATA...the computer does not see the drive until I power the case on
when connected via USB.I boot with the unit connected but not
powered...I turn it on when I wish to back up stuff.
hope this was helpful
peter

Thank you Peter.

On the same computer I have another external drive with an IDE HD
inside. I never
have problems with this one. The OS - Win2K SP4 - recognizes it
immediately when
the computer boots up.

Any idea why there is a difference?

TIA

RF

 

[RF]

Boot the OS `Before` you switch on the external !.

Thank you Meercat.

See my comment under Peter's post.

Do you know why the difference between IDE and SATA external drives?

TIA

RF

 

[meerkat]

SNIPPED SOME

Thank you Meercat.

See my comment under Peter's post.

Do you know why the difference between IDE and SATA external drives?

When you Boot your machine, the BIOS can read IDE
drives, but not SATAs.
When you are booted into your OS the SATA drivers are
loaded.
Hence everything works as you`d like.

bw..

 

[RF]

When you Boot your machine, the BIOS can read IDE
drives, but not SATAs.
When you are booted into your OS the SATA drivers are
loaded.
Hence everything works as you`d like.

bw..

What I really want the SATA drive to do is the same as what the IDE
drive does.
However, I guess I am stuck with regularly switching off and on the SATA
drive.

Thanks for your help.

RF

 

[Mark F]

What I really want the SATA drive to do is the same as what the IDE
drive does.
However, I guess I am stuck with regularly switching off and on the SATA
drive.

Thanks for your help.

RF

I am not sure the original poster wants: if he uses an SATA to USB
converter, then the drive won't be seen by the BIOS. If he
tried to connect the SATA drive directly to a SATA controller,
then the drive should be seen before the operating system
boots, but may only be seen in the controller BIOS stuff,
not in the motherboard BIOS stuff.

I also don't know if his problem is with SATA in general or
with a big SATA drive.

However, if the user did try connecting the drive to a SATA controller
on the motherboard or an add-in card and the drive isn't seen
or the system hangs, then there might be a
problem with the controller.

In particular, I have a
Gateway 700S computer purchased in 2001 with an
Addonics ADSA4R-E 4-Port eSATA PCI
Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATARaid Controller
that was purchased in 2005.

I have several Seagate 7200.10 ST3750640AS drives
purchased in 2006.

The controller hangs after POST when the various
PCI cards (Ethernet, SCSI, SATA) configure themselves.
In particular the SATA card gets stuck after seeing the
first 750GB drive but before displaying the size of the
Seagate ST3750640AS drive.

Without the 750GB drive, all the other SATA drives (200, 400,
and 500 GB) are seen and configured correctly. (I
don't remember a SATA drive can be booted from on
this system. I have a Dell system than can boot
from SATA drives connected to the motherboard. I don't
know if that system could boot from an SATA drive on
an add-in card.)

If I connect only SATA drives that are 500GB or less
then The Gateway 700S with PCI SATA add in card controller
has no problem seeing the drives and the system has no
problem booting from it's usual EIDE drive. (I only tried
80, 160, 200, 320, 400, and 500 GB, so perhaps the
limit is not exactly 500GB.)

When I boot to Windows XP I have access to all EIDE and SATA
drives that were connected at boot time.

In addition, after Windows XP has completed booting
I can startup the Silicon Image SATARaid 1.13 application
and connect a 750GB either in a removable disk tray or
and external box using an eSATA connector, and there are
no problems that I see when accessing the disk.

Perhaps the original poster has a similar problem with
his SATA controller or motherboard.

(I haven't tried any other 750GB drives or any 1TB drive,
so I don't know if the problem is with the controller
or the drive type.)