Getting SATA drive to be hot swappable

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

Hey there,

I have been trying to get my Windows 7 Home machine to allow hot swappable on my Sata harddrive. I just built a new system using ASUS M5A88-M with an AMD FX8120 and have an OCZ SSD for the main drive and a Seagate Barracude 2TB 6Gbps as a storage drive. The case i got is a Silverstone GD06 and has two drive bays that you can add and remove harddrives from. They plug directly into the sata controller on the Motherboard. I have tried just about everything to get them working.

I installed the OS with AHCI enabled on all ports. The msachi drivers are installed and both harddrives work. I did not find any compatibility issues with the mobo or hdd with being hot swappable. I have tried editing the registry, i tried the app "HotSwap" all to no avail.

The SATA Dvd drive is able to be "Safely Removed" so i know the AHCI controller is working right, I just cannot get the SATA drive to be removeable. The end goal of this is to get the second bay to have another harddrive in it and use that as the storage i was just trying to get the Seagate to remove so i know the system works.

Thanks for any advice you can give tech's!

Alex

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I assume it doesnt work when you plug the sata cable directly from board to hard drive rather than the little case board thing right? (i assume its a circuit board behind the drives?)

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I have the OCZ SSD plugged directly into the mobo and cannot get that to be hot- swappable either. The circuit boards behind the sata holders look like just pin connections, no actual mCPUs or anything like that.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

forgive me its been a while since ive done any hotswapping. That app hotswap theres an option to scan for the hardware once you've put the drive back in right? does that find it?

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I cannot even remove the harddrive unless I yank it out without "safely removing" it. the Hotswap app still categorizes my Sata HDDs as "Non Hot-Swappable"

 

[PCX]

Honestly, I am a Linux guy, my whole shop is run off Linux and I only have a couple computers with Windows on it for misc tasks. That said, I have noticed that in just about every Linux box that I have ever put together, hard drives can easily be hot swapped. But when you install Windows, all of a sudden it does not work. I have absolutely no reasons to make any of my Windows machines hot swappable, so I have not tried to troubleshoot this issue, it's just an observation. Anyways, my point is, maybe there is a limitation in the OS rather than the hardware? Have you tried running the same set up under Linux and tried hot swapping your drives?

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I just downloaded a Linux client and I will try it out. My end goal is to have this working on the Windows machine as it will be used for design and trasferring files from home office to multiple offices, other than cloud/ online storage I would like it to be the classic heel-toe express for moving these files.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

That board has no eSata right? maybe the board doesnt do hotswapping. Though the chipset does apparently? http://www.google.com/search?q=SB850+hotswap some other brand have a bios update for it but they also have esata ports so i dunno.

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

There is no eSata on this board its an mATX, its bigger ATX brother has eSATA. I havent tried to source updates for the BIOS to see if that will fix it, I will try it but if the native BIOS is the problem, an update may not fix it. I will report back

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

you have newest chipset drivers and raid/ahci drivers?

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I should, I am going to scour the support websites and make sure of it before I come back, thanks for your help repair tech

 

[PCX]

The chipset should support it, but if there is a limitation in Windows that does not allow it to work properly, then maybe you should consider getting a PCI-E to SATA card that is hot swappable. There are a few on Newegg. Also, double check your bios settings and make sure you have the latest bios version.

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I have all the latest drivers for the chipset and the latest BIOS, looks like im going to cave and go get a PCI Sata Card, thanks guys, total BS

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

this is going to haunt me, my gut is telling me im missing something

 

[Rosco]

this is going to haunt me, my gut is telling me im missing something

why are the simpliest problems end up being the most difficult.

 

[Wilkins IT Solutions]

I hear you, I will not let this go.... "you win this round Windows 7..... you win this round"

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

You said you tried some registry changes, which ones did you try.

Edit: and what happens if you plug in a sata hard drive after you logged into windows (not unplugged then replug but just plugging one in that wasnt initially there on power on)

Edit: try it in the same sata port that you had the optical drive in

 

[Bigj]

Hot-swap for sata is a fucntion of AHCI not if you have esata or not. As PCX said, linux does wonders with hotswap and I have NEVER had a problem with it in my arch installs. Windows on the other hand, even tho it should technically work..... is worthless.

 

[RedFoxComp]

In the BIOS there might be a per-port option to enable the device to be removable.

*edit* I couldn't remember the setting name so I took a screenshot of my main desktop. Here I have my external ESATA ports only set to be hot swappable.

It's a nice setting because now I don't eject any of my internal drives by mistake.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

+1 on updating your BIOS and checking it for settings.