External SATA drive recognition

[Quattro Pete]

I have a 3.5" SATA drive in an external enclosure, connected to the PC (Win7 32-bit) using a SATA cable. The enclosure has an ON/OFF switch. The PC will only "see" this drive if the enclosure was ON when the PC was booting up. If I turn the enclosure ON after the PC already booted up, the PC will not see the drive. Is there any way to change it so that I can turn the enclosure ON after the PC has already been started?

FYI, this problem only occurs when using the SATA connection. If I use a USB connection instead, I can turn the enclosure ON at any time and the PC will see it right away.

 

[MrHorspwer]

There should be a BIOS setting that enables or disables hot swapping of SATA drives. That would be my first check.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Figured it out. There is a piece of third party software called HotSwap! that solves the problem.

 

[TxHeat]

Glad your 3rd party software is taking care of this problem.

Without knowing your computers' specs, operating system etc, I can tell you that hot swapping is not available if you're running in legacy IDE mode. It is available in AHCI mode and that is something that is installed during installation of Windows. Many refer to it as F6 install. It's an AHCI driver that you install using the F6 key at an early point in Windows installation. Prior to Windows 7, (unsure of Vista), conversion was not possible, it required a reinstall of Windows. With Windows 7 it is possible to convert to AHCI with some registry tweaks and changes to BIOS settings.

Short of that, and if your 3rd party software were not available, you can simply go to Device Manager in Windows and click on "Scan for new hardware" after connecting or turning on your external drive.

Happy New Year,

Larry

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
With Windows 7 it is possible to convert to AHCI with some registry tweaks and changes to BIOS settings.

Yup. I found some info on this as well. Thanks.

 

[Rand]

you can also open the

computer management>storage>disk management
and hit rescan drives and it will show up.

 

[1 FMF]

Hotswap! is a great piece of software.
What will also work is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology, gives you a little icon just like hotswap! and operates the same way, and can be downloaded from downloadcenter.intel.com.