975XBX2 / E-SATA Question

[Sparky]

I purchased and external hard drive enclosure with E-SATA & USB 2.0 support for my 975XBX2 system. I would prefer to use the E-SATA because it has far faster transfer speeds from what I've read. The enclosure came with a bracket for the back on my case and I know to plug it in to the red SATA on my mobo, but my question is: what do I need to do then? Do I have to enable the Marvell SATA in BIOS? Or is the red SATA a stand alone connector?
Thanks in advance guys.

[cyclo]

I have 2 eSATA enclosures that I alternately plug into a SATA to eSATA bracket that in turn plugs to the red Marvell eSATA connector. I have been using it with no problems for more than 6 months. You do have to enable Marvell controller in the BIOS and install the Marvell RAID drivers even though you will not need to setup RAID.

The eSATA port is hot pluggable which means I can turn the external enclosure on and off without the need to reboot the PC for the drive to be recognized.

EDIT: Since I had a spare SATA to eSATA bracket, I decided to connect it an unused Intel SATA port. This works too without any problems... including hot plug. Note that I am using the latest Intel Matrix Storage drivers and have AHCI enabled.

[Sparky]

Thanks for the advice. I am leary of using the Marvell controllers so that's why I was asking.

[Sparky]

Ok, I think I found my problem. I didn't install the RAID drivers via F6 when I installed Windows, so I can't run Intel Matrix Storage Manager & I can't set AHCI via BIOS (blue screens, won't boot).

Anybody know how to install AHCI support AFTER Windows install or am I SOL?

[cyclo]

Check out these threads... one from here at Legit and another from Tom's Hardware forums... I followed these to get my AHCI enabled as I originally installed Vista with the default non-AHCI drivers too:

http://forums.legitreviews.com/about10253.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24030 ... -ahci-mobo

[Sparky]

Thanks for the links. Pretty informative. I'd seen the Vista one's before but not the XP one. Anybody out there tried this in XP yet?

[IRQ Conflict]

Nope, I read the instructions.

[Sparky]

I updated the drivers by going to device manager, right clicking the SATA controllers, then telling it to look for disc and installing the Intel drivers from my floppy. But I still can't enable AHCI or RAID in BIOS or it blue screens on boot. Also can't install Intel Storage Manager, get an error message saying something about not meeting requirements??

[DaddyRabbit]

I updated the drivers by going to device manager, right clicking the SATA controllers, then telling it to look for disc and installing the Intel drivers from my floppy. But I still can't enable AHCI or RAID in BIOS or it blue screens on boot. Also can't install Intel Storage Manager, get an error message saying something about not meeting requirements??

Unless I'm missing something (which is highly possible) isn't the e-sata port on the Marvell controller? If you installed the Intel drivers that is for the ICH7R, you need to install the Marvell drivers I believe to use the red SATA port and I can't see where there is any option to define AHCI or RAID in the Marvell BIOS settings.

In the post that I made (linked to above) I did this under XP SP2 using only the Intel ports. Try to install the Marvell drivers and don't enable AHCI in BIOS (that's for the ICH7R controller only AFAIK). Then see if the e-sata device works as advertised.

[Sparky]

Thanks, yes I was able to enable Marvell controllers in BIOS. But I was hoping to set it up to use hot swap via the Intel controller, that's why I was trying to update the Intel SATA controller driver. I'm not crazy about the Marvell controller after some of the posts I've read about the problems with it. Also don't like the extra screen on boot with the Marvel enabled. I'm going to try the red controller this weekend, so far I've just used the USB 2.0 to transfer files. Not too shabby, but I'm sure the

[cyclo]

I have had no problems whatsoever with the Marvell controller. I suspect those that have had problems had an earlier revision of the 975XBX2 board. Also, I don't get bothered by an extra 1-2 second message that appears at boot time... as a matter of fact, in Vista I seldom do a full reboot anymore as I usually just let the PC go into Hybrid Sleep mode instead of shutting it off completely.

I now have 2 eSATA brackets connected to the red eSATA (Marvell) and a black SATA (Intel) port as I have 2 eSATA enclosures. Both work fine and are hot plug capable but I find that the dedicated Marvell eSATA port takes less time to recognize the external hard drive when it is switched on (about 5-10 seconds). The external hard drive connected to the black Intel SATA port via the bracket takes about 20-30 seconds to get recognized by the system.

The bonus (in Vista) with both ports when connected to external enclosure is that when the computer goes to hybrid sleep (everything off except for the 5 volt power to the motherboard which allows instant on when the mouse/keyboard is moved or a WoL signal is sent to the PC), the external drives also go to sleep (spins down).

[Sparky]

Thanks cyclo, I still haven't installed the bracket, been busy last couple of days. May try it tomorrow. As far as the boot time delay with the Marvell controllers enable, guess I can always enable / disable in BIOS when ever I'm going to need to use the E-SATA drive for my back up.