eSATA Drive On New KDE4 System

[Georgetoon]

This is a minor issue, but I'd like to figure it out just the same.

I have a new PCLinuxOS Computer.  I have an eSATA drive hooked up.  When I power on before the system boots, the BIOS gets sorta confused and won't move forward.  Resetting and booting with the drive off then brings up Grub and I can boot into PCLinuxOS.

With the system up and running, turning on the eSATA drives results in no activity. the drive is not found.  Unplugging and pluggin back in, the brings the drive up.

Not a big issue, because the drive is being used for backup.  I don't require it to be on 24/7.  I'm just wondering how I can get it recognized simply by turning on the power after the system is up and runnning.  I can always use it as USB 2.0, but SATA would be faster. 

[pirate]

I have a 500gb Sata Seagate that does the same thing, i have tried it on 3 different computers=same problem

got so disgusted with it it don't even use it anymore

[chiefjim]

Check your BIOS settings for how SATA is recognized

[pirate]

the other sata drives work fine

[Truthfinder]

 I also have a 500gb Sata Seagate USB drive that causes me endless grief, especially if I have to re-install (Grub seems to get confused) which I've had to do twice within the last week. I find its best for me to just turn it off and only turn it on whenever I'm going to use it.

[chiefjim]

the other sata drives work fine

But are the other drives internal?  With my Gigabyte board I was unable to boot to a Ultimate Boot CD when my AHCI was set to active.  Changing it to Native IDE worked but I lost recognition of the hard drive connected to my eSATA port.  Easy enough to test with your own system.

[Georgetoon]

My other SATA drives are internal.   As mentioned here, I do think it's simply a matter of changing the BIOS.   And, on this system, it appears that the changes to the BIOS are automatic.   I'll fiddle with it a bit. I just may only plug in the SATA cable when I need to backup large amounts of data.   For day to day stuff, I simply might rely on USB.

[pags]

Sounds like it might be an issue with how the BIOS enumerates the SATA/eSATA drives at power-on.

I do not have access to an eSATA drive to test with, but testing should be fairly straight forward with a Live CD or USB...

[plambi]

Just be sure to select AHCI mode - not SATA, RAID or Native mode in your BIOS-es, of course - if possible.
My mobo - Asus M3N78-EM is fully AHCI compliant and there are no problems at all to connect my SATA drives via SATA "I" to SATA "L" cable.

More info here:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,62803.0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

[Georgetoon]

Just be sure to select AHCI mode - not SATA, RAID or Native mode in your BIOS-es, of course - if possible.
My mobo - Asus M3N78-EM is fully AHCI compliant and there are no problems at all to connect my SATA drives via SATA "I" to SATA "L" cable.

More info here:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,62803.0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

I'll have a look. so far, AFAIKS, the BIOS configures automatically.  I know there's a way to get into it manually, but nee to take a closer look.

[SpeedVin]

Hey!
I want to ask a 2 question's...
1.Does e-Sata works without problem's when I have AHCI mode enabled (I mean auto mounting the drive)?
2.I want to install on it an PCLOS and make an partition for backup's (Will it work without problem's when I got option to only boot from the extrenal drive and DVD) I mean that it will work just like in normal disk after installing Grub in MBR on it?
Thanks!

[Old-Polack]

Hey!
I want to ask a 2 question's...
1.Does e-Sata works without problem's when I have AHCI mode enabled (I mean auto mounting the drive)?
2.I want to install on it an PCLOS and make an partition for backup's (Will it work without problem's when I got option to only boot from the extrenal drive and DVD) I mean that it will work just like in normal disk after installing Grub in MBR on it?
Thanks!

1. It does on my machine. The external drive is treated exactly like it's an internal drive. When selected to be the boot drive, the grub installed in it's MBR gives the same boot menu as that on the internal drive, but with the boot options from it's own /boot/grub/menu.lst. In my case I've added the boot options for the installations on all drives, with whatever modifications necessary to show those as being on (hd1,n), (hd2,n), or (hd3,n), being as those will shift when the external drive becomes (hd0)

2. As stated, one needs to modify the boot options in that drives master menu.lst, to reflect each installation relative to the external drive being (hd0). This is the same as would be necessary if the drive were an internal drive, designated as the boot drive.

[Georgetoon]

In my case, I moved a HD from bay three to bay four and everything now comes right up. I'm thinking bay three has a bad cable going to the motherboard. Bay three appears to be the culprit in throwing things off. At least, I'm hoping it's only a cable and not the motherboard itself. Bay one, two and four have booting fine every since I switched from three to four.   I haven't had a chance to get inside and switch cables. Plus, ay yi yi!  Is it busy in there!:) I gotta figure out which cable is which.)

[SpeedVin]

Hey!
I want to ask a 2 question's...
1.Does e-Sata works without problem's when I have AHCI mode enabled (I mean auto mounting the drive)?
2.I want to install on it an PCLOS and make an partition for backup's (Will it work without problem's when I got option to only boot from the extrenal drive and DVD) I mean that it will work just like in normal disk after installing Grub in MBR on it?
Thanks!

1. It does on my machine. The external drive is treated exactly like it's an internal drive. When selected to be the boot drive, the grub installed in it's MBR gives the same boot menu as that on the internal drive, but with the boot options from it's own /boot/grub/menu.lst. In my case I've added the boot options for the installations on all drives, with whatever modifications necessary to show those as being on (hd1,n), (hd2,n), or (hd3,n), being as those will shift when the external drive becomes (hd0)

2. As stated, one needs to modify the boot options in that drives master menu.lst, to reflect each installation relative to the external drive being (hd0). This is the same as would be necessary if the drive were an internal drive, designated as the boot drive.

Then after installing PCLOS on disk, enable booting from it in BIOS and plugging and turn it on all will work out of the box without problem's right?

[Old-Polack]

Hey!
I want to ask a 2 question's...
1.Does e-Sata works without problem's when I have AHCI mode enabled (I mean auto mounting the drive)?
2.I want to install on it an PCLOS and make an partition for backup's (Will it work without problem's when I got option to only boot from the extrenal drive and DVD) I mean that it will work just like in normal disk after installing Grub in MBR on it?
Thanks!

1. It does on my machine. The external drive is treated exactly like it's an internal drive. When selected to be the boot drive, the grub installed in it's MBR gives the same boot menu as that on the internal drive, but with the boot options from it's own /boot/grub/menu.lst. In my case I've added the boot options for the installations on all drives, with whatever modifications necessary to show those as being on (hd1,n), (hd2,n), or (hd3,n), being as those will shift when the external drive becomes (hd0)

2. As stated, one needs to modify the boot options in that drives master menu.lst, to reflect each installation relative to the external drive being (hd0). This is the same as would be necessary if the drive were an internal drive, designated as the boot drive.

Then after installing PCLOS on disk, enable booting from it in BIOS and plugging and turn it on all will work out of the box without problem's right?

Essentially yes, but the devil is in the details. The drive must be connected, and turned on, before it can be selected as the boot drive in BIOS. That means before the computer itself is turned on. If the BIOS can't see the drive when the computer is first turned on, it will not show up in the list of bootable hard drives. If the drive is removed/not present when the computer is turned on, the boot drive will automatically revert to one of the drives the BIOS can see. One would need to reboot, after starting the external drive, in order for it to be selectable as the boot drive, in BIOS.

As the majority of my installations are on the external drive, it is always connected, and I always power it up before the computer. In this manner it always remains as the boot drive. If I do remove the drive, to use with another machine, the main machine then boots from the default internal boot drive, and even if I reconnect the external drive, will not boot from it until I manually reset it as the boot drive. This applies only if the main machine is turned on while the external drive is not present. If the drive is used elsewhere, then returned to the main machine, and the main machine has not been turned on during the time the external drive was disconnected, as long as the external drive is powered up before the computer itself, the settings making it the boot drive will not have changed, as the computer will not have sensed the time it was not present.