Re: in lieu of swapping out hard drives

I am skeptical that usb and eSATA are handled the same way in the BIOS. I wonder what the HP agent might have meant. The devices are on different busses, no?

"C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:47a1f893$0$90274$14726298@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
C.Joseph S. Drayton wrote:

Anna wrote:
c.Joseph... Could you clarify your above comment?
(And we are talking about the XP OS here, right?)

You're working with a HP dv8100 notebook. You say "...when the card
is installe(d) and connect(ed) to a drive, if I hit [ESC] on
boot, I am given the option to boot from the external drive."

Could you "flesh" that out a bit?

What "card"? You're referring to an ExpressCard with one or more
eSATA ports?

If so, could you provide the make/model of that device?

At what point do you press the [ESC] key during the bootup process?

And when you do this a menu displays displaying a listing of the
bootable devices in your laptop, one of which is the SATA external
HDD you've connected to the ExpressCard eSATA device? Is the
external SATA HDD you've connected a bare drive or is it in a SATA
external enclosure?

And you can then select that bootable SATA HDD from the list and
the system will boot to it? Works every time?

Do you know whether this is an integrated HP function or is it
possible this capability was provided by the driver disk
accompanying the CardBus device?

Is there any info re the above in the HP User Manual? Anna


"C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message ... Hi
Anna, The hardware I am referring to is;

1) Hewlette-Packard Pavilion dv8100cto laptop with a ExpressCard
port. 2) Addonics ADEXC34-2E with 2 eSATA ports 3) Addonics
AASA2SAP15C SATA-to-eSATA converter cable 4) Mapower MAP-H31SS-01
Drive case 5) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7

The Seagate is mounted in the Mapower case. The Mapower case is
connected to the Addonics ExpressCard via the Addonics > SATA to
eSATA converter cable. The Addonics ExpressCard is > plugged into
the ExpressCard slot on the dv8100cto laptop.

Immediately after pressing the power button, press the [Esc] key. I
then get the window to enter the bios password. I enter the BIOS
password and see the BIOS initialization screen. The screen clears
and I get a screen that list the possible boot devices > (at the
bottom of the list is the option to enter 'setup').

I choose the Seagate drive and it boots.

It booted successfully a couple of times. I did not do extensive >
tests since as I said I hate having to rely on external drives and
would definitely NOT put a production system on an external drive.

I have no idea whether it is an integrated HP function or not. I
never bother to download the User Guide. Off the top of my head I
would guess yes since the drive is recognized as bootable at a BIOS
level. -- C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T CSD Computer Services Web
site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/ E-mail: csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx


Anna wrote:
C. Joseph... Many thanks for the comprehensive info.

As I indicated in my previous posts, we've been singularly
unsuccessful in booting XP from a ExpressCard. While we've used a
number of different ExpressCard models, we haven't worked with the
Addonics line, although interestingly enough I'm pretty sure a
number of the ExpressCards we worked with used the same chipset
(Sil 3132) as the Addonics device, yet we were unable to
successfully boot to a SATA HDD connected to the ExpressCard
containing a bootable XP OS.
Assuming it works reliably as it apparently has in your experience
(at least up to now), this would be a significant leap forward for
maintaining a comprehensive backup system for laptop/notebook users
who, using a disk-to-disk cloning program, e.g., Symantec's Ghost
or Acronis True Image, or our current favorite Casper 4.0, could
clone the contents of their internal HDD to an external HDD and
that external device would be bootable. It's a capability that has
escaped us up to now as it concerns laptops/notebooks. Naturally
we would hope this capability would extend to laptops/notebooks in
general, not just to HP models.

Presumably this info should be of some interest to the OP who is
interested in establishing & maintaining a multi-boot configuration
involving his/her laptop. Anna


"C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message...

To get a definitive answer for you, I will connect it up tonignt and
do a fresh install of Fedora 8 (Linux) to the eSATA and see if it will
boot. A buddy of mine suggested I check out this new version of
Fedora, so I will kill 2 birds with one stone . . . 1) check out
Fedora 8, 2) let you know if Fedora 8 will boot off of the eSATA
drive.

BTW, I know you said you are using WindowsXP, but if Fedora 8 will
boot from it then so will Windows. Part of the reason for doing it
this way also is that Tim is concerned that my deactivating the
partition on my main drive may not be enough to prove that it is in
fact booting from the eSATA. Since Fedora 8 has never been on my hard
disk and will not be in the Ubuntu grub loader, a succesful boot will
be a clear indicator that it is in fact booting from the eSATA drive.

Hi Anna,

Soory I didn't get back to you last night. my DVD-RW decided last night
that it was going to take a vacation <LOL>. I got the Fedora 8 ISO
burned this morning (ended up burning at 1x instead of 2x (another
project to work on . . . why did I need to burn at a slower speed). The
following is what I have done.

1) I burned the ISO on the dv8100cto.
2) shut down the dv8100cto and connected a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7
mounted in a Mapower MAP-H31SS-01 drive case connected to my dv8100cto
via an Addonics AASA2SAP15C SATA-to-eSATA converter cable which is
plugged into a Addonics ADEXC34-2E with 2 eSATA ports which in turn is
plugged into the Expresscard port on the dv8100cto.
3) Turned on the computer and presses the [Esc] key within 3 seconds of
powering it on.
4) Enter my BIOS password
5) Recieve screen asking which device to boot from
6) Choose CDROM
7) Run Fedora 8
8) Choose hd2 for the installation
9) Complete installation
10) Remove CD from CDROM drive
11) Shut down Fedora 8 with an actual shutdown (not reboot)
12) Unplug ExpressCard and turn on computer
13) Get my normal grub loader;
Ubuntu loads
Windows2000pe loads
WindowsXPpe loads
14) Using the Hiren's Boot Disk v9.1 use Acronis to check and see if
any new partitions have been created on either my primary or secondary
drive. None have been created.
15) Shutdown the computer
16) Plug in ExpressCard
17) Turned on the computer and presses the [Esc] key within 3 seconds
of powering it on.
18) Enter my BIOS password
19) I recieve screen asking which device to boot from
20) Select second to last option which is the external hard disk
21) Fedora 8 boots up

I plugged and unplugged, boooted from local drives, etc. about a dozen
times. Each time the external drive was connected and I chose it, it
booted up successfully. I was also able to boot my local drives
including the CDROM with the eSATA connected.

If I have time this weekend, I will boot up some of my diagnostics disk
to see if I can determine why this works since HP 'TechSupport' says it
can't. I will also see if can get the system to boot from a
thumbdrive. If I understood Tim correctly, his statement was that HP
was saying that the eSATA is handled by the BIOS the same way that USB
is. Since HP actually makes an application for creating a bootable
thumbdrive I will use their image to create the boot disk. I have found
the application and downloaded it. Again I will post results after
testing.
--

C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx

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