eSATA on Dell Studio 1558?

[AliGlenUig]

Hi,
I would have posted this on the Dell forum but their registration system keeps rejecting registration for some reason.
So anyway, I'm currently mixing/producing audio on this Studio 1558 laptop which is pretty mediocre. There is a combined USB/eSATA port, and I just today put together an external eSATA hard drive to record audio to.

FWIW I have put a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB capacity with 64MB cache HDD into an Antec MX-1 enclosure.

After a bit of a hassle, I initialised and formatted the drive using the USB connection [nothing doing on the eSATA]. Now that the drive appears fine and is accessible via USB, I tried the eSATA connector again. No gravy. Doesn't turn up in My Computer, and the option to safely remove doesn't appear either. However when first plugging the eSATA in I do get the little 'du doo' sound file that plays when a device is hooked up. Tried restarting comp/drive with and without connection. Still nothing.

So I had a look around online and from what I can tell several Dell models have bad eSATA ports [also Firewire]. I couldn't find any driver/BIOS updates anywhere relating to eSATA and although this particular model hasn't been mentioned explicitly as being problematic, I'm assuming that the port is the problem.

I'm just wondering if anyone has had problems with eSATA on the 1558 or if no one can comment, whether there is some fundamental aspect of using eSATA that I'm missing. I've heard it has to be powered, but the enclosure is an externally powered one so that can't be the issue.
I wish I had a different make of computer/laptop with eSATA to confirm it's not the enclosure/cable or something.

Considering an eSATA expresscard 34 adapter. Might not be as fast, and an extra expense but I NEED eSATA.

If anyone has an alternative solution puleeeez help me out.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Is the eSATA operation set to ATA or AHCI? If it's set to ATA, then you must reboot the computer for the drive to be detected. AHCI is hot-swappable, which means you can plug it in anytime.

Give the system a reboot with the drive plugged in and turned on and see what happens.

 

[AliGlenUig]

Is the eSATA operation set to ATA or AHCI? If it's set to ATA, then you must reboot the computer for the drive to be detected. AHCI is hot-swappable, which means you can plug it in anytime.

Give the system a reboot with the drive plugged in and turned on and see what happens.

Thanks voyagerfan, tried a reboot as you suggested but no joy. How do you check the ATA/AHCI setting anyway? Is this something to do with BIOS settings?

As you can tell, I'm not particularly literate in the more fundamental ccomputer settings.

Cheers
___
Ali

 

[voyagerfan99]

Thanks voyagerfan, tried a reboot as you suggested but no joy. How do you check the ATA/AHCI setting anyway? Is this something to do with BIOS settings?

As you can tell, I'm not particularly literate in the more fundamental ccomputer settings.

Cheers
___
Ali

Yes, the ATA/AHCI settings are controlled under the BIOS. It'll be under SATA/eSATA operation or something similar.

 

[AliGlenUig]

Yes, the ATA/AHCI settings are controlled under the BIOS. It'll be under SATA/eSATA operation or something similar.

OK. Forgive my complete ignorance but I have no idea how to view the BIOS.

Although it doesn't seem like this setting is the issue anyway. I'm going to get an expresscard expansion.

 

[voyagerfan99]

OK. Forgive my complete ignorance but I have no idea how to view the BIOS.

Although it doesn't seem like this setting is the issue anyway. I'm going to get an expresscard expansion.

Press F2 as soon as you turn on the computer.

 

[AliGlenUig]

Thanks for the help. The drive was actually recognised as being connected in the BIOS, and its operation was set to the hot-swappable setting anyway.
I received an expresscard eSATA expansion today which worked instantly. Let it be known: The Dell Studio 1558 has the same eSATA port issues as what seems to be all of their laptops [i.e. it doesn't work!].

___
Ali