eSATA Host Card Problems

Computer Forum CPU, Motherboards and Memory
1

hello,

I’m having a bit of a problem with what I assume should be a fairly simple thing. I purchased an external eSATA hard drive and a PCIe SATA/eSATA host card. Actually I’ve purchased 2 host cards, since i thought the first was defective, and now the 2nd is doing the same thing. Obviously, I am having a lot of problems trying to get this setup to work.

The first host card was standard PCI. After installing, windows Vista would not recognize that any new hardware had been installed in the system. In device manager, there was no trace of the host adapter. After trying the drive install package, (just to check), it seemed to verify that the card could not be found. So i returned it and tried a different brand, and this time a PCIe card. I installed it today and its doing the exact same thing. it is not recognized at all. I have tried both PCIe slots with no luck, however with the PCIe card, the manufacturer name and card are at least visible during POST before windows loads, so I know that at least its not a problem with the mobo not recognizing it (right?).

I looked into the BIOS today, and I see a section in “Integrated Peripherals > On Chip ATA Devices > On Chip SATA Channel” I turned this Enabled this option and then set it to SATA. I have no idea if this applies, but i think it does because, when I make this change and reboot, Vista starts to load and then blue-screens and crashes. The bluescreen is very brief and unreadable, but in event viewer, I see the following.. The important part is about the IRQ. I’m pretty sure through trial and error that PCI slot 6 is the slot the esata card is installed on.

Log Name: System
Source: ACPI
Date: 3/4/2008 9:15:06 PM
Event ID: 6
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Keith-WS
Description:
IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 6, function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.
Event Xml:



6
2
0
0x80000000000000

7684
System
Keith-WS





IRQARB
6
0
000000000400300000000000060005C0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really want this eSATA thing to work, but it seems impossible so far.

Thanks.

2

Welcome to HWF :slight_smile:

Every device in a PC needs a unique IRQ address, that gets assigned by the BIOS these days. Apparently the BIOS is not able to support the device yet, or there’s a conflict. What motherboard (brand and type) do you have? Then I’ll look if there’s a BIOS update that solves that issue. Also please post information about any other devices you might have inserted into the expansion slots. Also try to put the eSATA card into a different slot.

3

thanks for your response.

good news. i downgraded to XP right after i posted and magically, with default bios settings, the card was recognized and i successfully installed the drivers.

bad news, the esata drive is not recognized. irritating to say the least. device manager says the host card is working fine, so i solved one problem only to reveal another. :wink:

and thanks for the offer to look at updated bios versions, i actually updated it this morning to the current version.

as far as other cards in the pci bus, there are none other than a GeForce 8800 GT.

It’s been really irritating. I have Fry’s Electronics where I live and it seems like they carry the cheapest possible PC components possible. you know what im talking about, small box, with a pc card thrown in with a tiny single sheet xeroxed “manual” that is of no help at all and is not even written in good english. all of the boxes say vista compatible, but when you go to their website (or excuse for a website) they only have a few drivers for cards I dont have, and the product descriptions make no mention of vista compatibility. ahhhhhhh…

any further help would be greatly appreciated!!

4

Have you initialised and partioned the harddrive in Disk Management? (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer management > Disk Management). Because if it’s not partitioned, it doesn’t show up in My Computer.