SATA management?

[Guest]

I have customer with a Dell Dimension 8400 and a Dell Dimension 8300. We
successfully connected a Seagate e-SATA external 350GB drive to the 8300, but
the 8400 warns "unrecognized device" when we plug the dirve in to a USB port.
If we try to boot with the drive attached, Windows halts the boot process
about 1/3 through the progress bar.

All other USB devices work properly on all the USB ports.

I suspect that our Windows XP Pro SP2 is missing some SATA-related files.
There is nothing in the Device Manager to manage SATA drives. Dell suport is
useless and Seagate support is non-existant.

Any help available?

Thank you,

Mike B.

 

[Rich Barry]

Mike, check the Bios for a setting that has to be enabled.

 

[Anna]

I have customer with a Dell Dimension 8400 and a Dell Dimension 8300. We
successfully connected a Seagate e-SATA external 350GB drive to the 8300,
but
the 8400 warns "unrecognized device" when we plug the dirve in to a USB
port.
If we try to boot with the drive attached, Windows halts the boot process
about 1/3 through the progress bar.

All other USB devices work properly on all the USB ports.

I suspect that our Windows XP Pro SP2 is missing some SATA-related files.
There is nothing in the Device Manager to manage SATA drives. Dell suport
is
useless and Seagate support is non-existant.

Any help available?

Thank you,

Mike B.

Mike:
1. You mention that you "successfully connected a Seagate e-SATA external
350GB drive" to the Dell 8300. Do you mean the eSATA external enclosure
containing the Seagate HDD was connected as a SATA device? AFAIK, neither
the Dell 8300 nor the 8400 models come equipped with an eSATA port. Is the
Seagate external enclosure device a combo unit - USB/SATA - and your problem
really involves a situation where the device is connected with the USB
interface to the Dell 8400?

2. Assuming that is your problem...
First of all, we have experienced boot problems when a USB external HDD is
connected/powered up at the time of system bootup. In a number of instances
we've encountered the problem where the system will fail to boot under those
circumstances. Many times it's an erratic experience in that sometimes the
system will boot without problems - other times it won't when the USB
external HDD is connected/powered up when the system first boots. In a few
cases a BIOS update corrected the problem; in other cases we've not found
any solution other than connecting/powering up the external USB device after
the system boots. Under those circumstances the USB device (usually) is
recognized and functions without problems.

3. But if I correctly understand you, your problem is more serious in that
the USB external HDD is not detected at all by the system, at least insofar
as the Dell 8400 is concerned, the boot problem notwithstanding. Is that the
basic problem here?

Since you refer to your "customer" I assume you're a technician and are
familiar with the usual troubleshooting processes involving non-recognition
of USB devices, but I take it nothing has worked. Is that so?

But I'm still not clear on your reference to the SATA interface in this
situation. We are talking about USB-connectivity and not SATA-connectivity,
are we not?
Anna

 

[Guest]

You are entirely correct. It is a USB connection. The 8300 sees the device as
a USB mass storage device and the 8400 does not recognize it.

The Seagate site seems to imply that if the system recognizes SATA devices
(the 8400 comes with SATA ports enabled and an internal SATA drive), then the
drive can be managed through the device manager using the ATA/SATA category.
Again, Seagate help is non-existent, but the docs imply that the drive is
still eSATA whether connected by USB or Firewire. Since my device manager
doesn't show a category for Serial ATA, I thought maybe some files are not
included in my Dell Windowws XP Pro installation. This has been alluded to in
other posts regarding Dell, but the solution seems to refer mostly to the
motherboard drivers, which are fine.

The drive is detected fine from my Ubuntu live CD, therefore I've concluded
that something about Windows may be the problem. I would be happy if the
drive was detected as a simple USB mass storage device.

Thanks for your help,

Mike B

 

[Anna]

You are entirely correct. It is a USB connection. The 8300 sees the device
as
a USB mass storage device and the 8400 does not recognize it.

The Seagate site seems to imply that if the system recognizes SATA devices
(the 8400 comes with SATA ports enabled and an internal SATA drive), then
the
drive can be managed through the device manager using the ATA/SATA
category.
Again, Seagate help is non-existent, but the docs imply that the drive is
still eSATA whether connected by USB or Firewire. Since my device manager
doesn't show a category for Serial ATA, I thought maybe some files are not
included in my Dell Windowws XP Pro installation. This has been alluded to
in
other posts regarding Dell, but the solution seems to refer mostly to the
motherboard drivers, which are fine.

The drive is detected fine from my Ubuntu live CD, therefore I've
concluded
that something about Windows may be the problem. I would be happy if the
drive was detected as a simple USB mass storage device.

Thanks for your help,

Mike B

Mike:
I really don't think the SATA interface is, in any way, affecting this
problem.

The root of the problem I believe, is the ongoing problem we've all been
experiencing with USB device recognition - primarily involving USB external
HDDs and USB flash drives - in an XP environment. Time & time again we've
encountered puzzling instances where non-defective USB devices were
unrecognized in a non-defective hardware/driver environment involving the XP
OS.

We've become increasingly convinced that the relatively large number of
problems in this area involving the non-recognition of USB devices that
we've all been experiencing is an indication that there is something
seriously flawed with respect to either the USB 2.0 specifications, possibly
involving quality control issues affecting the manufacturer of these USB
devices as well as supporting components such as motherboards and other
USB-related components. Then too, we've become increasingly suspicious of
the XP OS as it relates to its recognition of and interaction with these USB
2.0 devices.

As I've indicated, we have encountered far too many unexplained problems
affecting detection/recognition of these devices and their erratic
functioning not to believe that something is seriously amiss in this area.

Anyway, I realize that all this isn't helping you to solve your specific
problem, so try this...

You mention that the Seagate device is eSATA capable, so I'm assuming a SATA
HDD is installed in the enclosure. Why don't you try connecting the device
via its SATA data cable to one of the SATA connectors on the motherboard?
See if the HDD is recognized under those circumstances and its data can be
accessed. At least that will give you some indication that there's nothing
amiss with the SATA-connectivity capability of the device nor your Dell
system.

If this does work, yet you still can't achieve USB-connectivity, perhaps you
could consider a SATA adapter that you can install on the computer's I/O
backplane and use the device through that means. Those adapters are
relatively inexpensive and are simple to install. All this assumes, of
course, that this is physically possible with the Dell 8400 case and the
process would be agreeable to your customer.
Anna

 

[RalfG]

You could be looking for a Device Manager entry that doesn't exist.

There's no descriptor named SATA in my Device Manager either (not a Dell).
Viewing devices by connection, the internal SATA harddrive is shown
connected to an Intel 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 2651. Everest
identifies that as -

Bus 0, Device 31, Function 2 Intel 82801FB ICH6 - Serial-ATA/150 IDE
Controller [B-1]

The optical drives are connected to an Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage
Controller - 266F, which Everest identifies as -

Bus 0, Device 31, Function 1 Intel 82801FB ICH6 - ATA-100 IDE Controller
[B-1]

Don't have any external SATA drives but do have 2 external drives, one
connected on the IEEE 1394 port and one on USB2. The only connection shown
for these drives in Device Manager is to the firewire and USB2 controllers
respectively. No hint of a connection to the ATA controllers.