Re: ESATA box doesn't work??

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Pavel A. wrote:
It seems that all pieces of the puzzle are now fit...
After becoming confident that it won't work as is, I've set
SATA to native mode in the BIOS.
The Award BIOS on my GB mobo has two separate settings:
SATA ACHI mode enable and SATA Port 0-1 Native mode.
Both set to enabled.

Then BIOS displayes a new bunch of Intel SATA something messages,
and when XP started, all ICH9 SATA controllers and ports disappeared
from device manager! instead, it found one new device VEN_8086&DEV_2923
( and I thanked myself for installing Windows on a PATA disk :)

Well, let the wizard to go and connect to Windows update... not found!
Looked on the mobo CD - not found...
Then, Google turned on this page:
How to enable AHCI on Intel ICH9 under XP
http://www.wincert.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2318

I've followed these directions, with the exception that I used the Intel Matrix setup file,
iata_cd.exe, from my mobo CD - it is newer than the version described in the article;
it knows models up to DEV_2922, which is already ICH-9R.
So I've replaced 2922 to my id (2923) in iaahci.inf, installed it via dev.manager,
and the SATA controller come up and it detected the ESATA disk.
Cudos to Zagreb, Croatia!

But this wasn't the end. Very soon, the disk drive again started to "behave", eventually
it dropped from the dev.manager, with same timeout errors in eventlog as before.

Then I've rebooted the machine with the ESATA dock powered on, and
after couple of reboots the disk is reliably detected, and "hot plug"
works too - though my WinXP won't detect the eSATA disk as removable,
no"safely remove" icon, etc.
Also it seems that the disk needs to be introduced to each user account:
after logging on as my normal non-admin account (for internet browsing),
the sata errors come back and this took another reboot.

But once the disk is detected by the volume manager
and mounted, there's no more device or controller errors.

So, now my feeling is that the problem lies either in the Intel's driver (iastor.sys)
or in the BIOS; the hardware is probably good.
As noted in the above artice, hacking the Intel RAID driver is a suspicious
idea - but I had no other choice, the driver is not available from Windows Update
and hasn't been installed with the mobo INF package.

And the last note ... Sedna support has not answered my email.
Perhaps this is where they've cut their expences :)

Thanks again for your advices and for reading.

I'd be grateful for any comments - does anybody have a "standalone" ICH9 SATA driver
not bundled with the Intel Matrix/RAID software?
How to test that the disk is well and happy? Other tips for using eSATA docks like this one?

--pa


If you installed in AHCI mode from the very first day, the experience
would have been smoother. You can find AHCI/RAID F6 drivers for
Intel chipsets. You put these on a floppy and press F6 during the
WinXP install onto an Intel chipset. A motherboard install CD
may include a "MakeDisk" utility, to prepare this floppy.

iaahci.cat
iaachi.inf
iastor.cat
isstor.inf
iaStor.sys
TXTSETUP.OEM

Also, if you had plugged in a separate controller card, that would
have isolated the driver issues as well.

Some motherboards drive the ESATA port from a separate chip on
the motherboard, which again, separates the Intel driver issue,
from the ESATA driver issue. A motherboard that drives ESATA
from the main chipset, complicates matters.

Paul
.

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