Help installing a P.C.I Express E.S.A.T.A card

kingaaa

I bought this :

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/200703695233?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

off ebay, it arrived this morning. I opened up the pc, slipped it into the spare pcie slot, and powered up the pc. Installed the drivers on the supplied disc and everything seemed to go grand.Only problem is its not recognising either of the two drives I connect to it - even though when I go to device manager it tells me device is working fine. Now here's the thing, I got 2 esata cables with it which I ASSUMED were for connecting internal components to the card's two internal esata slots, am I way off here? If I need to connect the 2 internal esata slots to the motherbaord via the 2 supplied cables I'm screwed, I've no spare sata slots on the board after installing a third internal hard drive.

p.s. computer is a new Dell XPS8300

subway

Esata is external Sata so your mixing things up quite a bit.
What have you connnected to the card now?
It supports2 drives and needs a jumper set to select the right channel

allen175

For the 2 esata ports to work they need to be connected internally to the sata ports on the motherboard, so yes you might be screwed.

subway

allen175 wrote: »

For the 2 esata ports to work they need to be connected internally to the sata ports on the motherboard, so yes you might be screwed.

Don't think so?

allen175

ok, don't listen to me i'm an idiot! subway is right.

Monotype

The two internal SATA ports on the card are for connecting more hard drives inside the PC to the card. Not for connecting to the board - it's already connecting to the board through the slot.

Sometimes eSATA drives need to be connected and on before you boot up. At least once.

kingaaa

Monotype wrote: »

The two internal SATA ports on the card are for connecting more hard drives inside the PC to the card. Not for connecting to the board - it's already connecting to the board through the slot.

Sometimes eSATA drives need to be connected and on before you boot up. At least once.

Thats kinda what I thought, I did try reboot with the external esata hard drive connected but still no joy?!?!

subway

Did you check the jumper setting?

kingaaa

subway wrote: »

Did you check the jumper setting?

didnt actually subway, i presume you mean some kind of "plastic jumper"?

subway

Yep,it says in the eBay ad that you have to set a jumper to choose which ports to se so it's possible its not set correctly yet

kingaaa

subway wrote: »

Yep,it says in the eBay ad that you have to set a jumper to choose which ports to se so it's possible its not set correctly yet

yeah, just read that on the auction page - unfortunately the "manual" doesnt cover jumpers, just driver installation.

subway

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:10CebKmsHrAJ:www.apiotek.com/Database/PD_Manual/IE-1001/IE-1001%2520Manual.pdf+sil3132+jumpers&hl=en&gl=ie&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj9O5LDr_J4a6Td58Ftc1KY0_1W_w-oFrkEZAjUQnfe8rD7KKLCXlVwE8QoTdLB28UK5L-Zxt5Kj49bnEUaUg4zkqCb3YSNpM0bw-dOAxE5SAOJl2yVze4ZWHeSa_koUNiVw5Ax&sig=AHIEtbR-IYoJnKpJdHD0nbS75zbropVGgA

Page 4 might help?

vibe666

what sort of drives are you trying to connect, are they 2.5" (bus powered) or 3.5" (externally powered) drives?

i had a similar problem with a 2.5" eSata drive i bought, assuming that it would work with the eSata ports on all my hardware (HTPC, laptop, desktop PC & NAS) but unfortunately, it didn't work with any of them because is was a bus powered eSata drive (i.e. powered through the eSata cable, similar to 2.5" laptop sized USB drives) not externally powered (like 3.5" USB drives) and it turns out that only a small percentage of eSata ports are actually of the powered type (i.e. none of the ones on my hardware).

hopefully that makes some sense.

kingaaa

subway wrote: »

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:10CebKmsHrAJ:www.apiotek.com/Database/PD_Manual/IE-1001/IE-1001%2520Manual.pdf+sil3132+jumpers&hl=en&gl=ie&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj9O5LDr_J4a6Td58Ftc1KY0_1W_w-oFrkEZAjUQnfe8rD7KKLCXlVwE8QoTdLB28UK5L-Zxt5Kj49bnEUaUg4zkqCb3YSNpM0bw-dOAxE5SAOJl2yVze4ZWHeSa_koUNiVw5Ax&sig=AHIEtbR-IYoJnKpJdHD0nbS75zbropVGgA

Page 4 might help?

Thanks mate, all I got was a read-me web link

kingaaa

vibe666 wrote: »

what sort of drives are you trying to connect, are they 2.5" (bus powered) or 3.5" (externally powered) drives?

i had a similar problem with a 2.5" eSata drive i bought, assuming that it would work with the eSata ports on all my hardware (HTPC, laptop, desktop PC & NAS) but unfortunately, it didn't work with any of them because is was a bus powered eSata drive (i.e. powered through the eSata cable, similar to 2.5" laptop sized USB drives) not externally powered (like 3.5" USB drives) and it turns out that only a small percentage of eSata ports are actually of the powered type (i.e. none of the ones on my hardware).

hopefully that makes some sense.

yeah, they are 2 3.5 inch externally powered

kingaaa

Lads, this just isnt happening! Tried all different configurations with the jumpers - nothing. I even enabled RAID in the bios to see if it made any difference, still nothing. Am I doing something wrong here? it says for CONNECTION 1 (EXTERNAL PORT) JUMPERS 1-4 , CLOSE 1&2 , and for CONNECTION 2 (EXTERNAL PORT) JUMPERS 5-8 , CLOSE JUMPERS 1&2. Now I'm assuming by CLOSE they mean put a jumper on it, and by JUMPERS 5-8 , CLOSE JUMPERS 1&2, they mean put a jumper on 5&6?

subway

Not sure, can you take a close up photo of the jumpers?
To follow up on vibes post, is there power getting to the drive? Are they spinning up or could it be a psu issue? Can you use a power connector from another drive?

BostonB

Perhaps its a driver issue. W7 I assume.

kingaaa

Cant get a photo at the moment, but found one on the net that has the same chipset and the exact same print on the board :

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/135/pcixraidjumperspx2.jpg/


The drives are getting power alright, they are externally powered 3.5" drives

Yes, it is windows 7, but when I go into the properties of the controller its telling me the best drivers are installed. One thing I did notice in the properties is where it says "device location" (pic 2) , says "no device detected"???

subway

Asuming the jumpers are in the same position as the photo above, you need to all of them down so that each one is closed over pin 1 and pin 2.
the card in the image above is set for the internal ports to be active

kingaaa

subway wrote: »

Asuming the jumpers are in the same position as the photo above, you need to all of them down so that each one is closed over pin 1 and pin 2.
the card in the image above is set for the internal ports to be active

yeah, I removed the jumpers from 3-4 on jumpers 1-2-3-4 , and I removed the jumpers from 7-8 on jumpers 5-6-7-8 , is that correct for using the external ports?

kingaaa

Hold on!!! I feel like a right knob! I wasn't reading it right.Thanks subway, just moved all the jumpers DOWN and its working! At first the computer wouldn't boot so I tried disabling RAID, but it still wouldnt boot.Then I disconnected the 2 esata drives and it booted up, looks like it was trying to boot from one of the esata drives. I'm not savvy on RAID function at all, is there any benifits enabling it again?

subway

glad its sorted, RAID allows you to have multiple disks appear as one single disk or set up reduancy and mirroring.
i personally, would not recommend a software RAID solution as its too much at risk of corruption (maybe things have changed)
but i also would under no circumstances advise setting up any external disks in a RAID.