Internal SATA drives are treated as removable drives

I stand corrected on my last post as I am no longer sure & if this is all normal or not.

As I said, I was using the default MS AHCI driver.
I had the Safely Remove Hardware Icon that listed all my SATA devices.
In the Devices & Printers Window, it even listed all my SATA drives individually.

My Device manager looked like snip 1 below.

Perhaps this is the the MS AHCI driver acts?

At any count, out of curiosity, I upgraded the AHCI driver to the Intel one (v9.6.0.1014).

After that and a reboot or 2 later, I no longer have the Add/remove Hardware Icon, Devices & Printers shows no Hard Drives, and my Device manager looks like snip 2 below.

Odd.


However, i am curious about 1 thing. my motherboard has a ICH10 SB, NOT a ICH10R. (Fine by me as I do not RAID)
As you can see in snip 2 though, the Intel driver installed as ICH10R.
Will this be a issue?

if i get my PC running again (ram issues... again) ill try to install the ahci driver that came with my mobo, see if that fixes my problem

toolbox1234 said:

sygnus21 said:

Do you have your "internal" drives hooked up the the "e-sata" ports on the motherboard? That "might" be the problem.

Click to expand...

I think my "problem" is I have a DIY PC with an older motherboard (Gigabyte P965-DS3 rev 1.1). Since the motherboard was for hobbyists, the BIOS for it does not make any distinction between internal drive and ESATA drive. Any of the SATA socket can be connected to "internal" SATA drive or uses an ESTA cable for external SATA drive.

Click to expand...

If this is your board, check to see which SATA ports you're using. This is a guess, but if you're using the purple ports, try switching to the yellow ports.

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Also if you have AHCI enable and you do switch to the yellow ports, check your BIOS to make sure AHCI is enabled for the Intel SATA ports PRIOR to rebooting the system otherwise Windows won't boot.

Again, this is based on my guess that the purple ports are e-sata and the yellow ports are just SATA. Couldn't find a manual to prove this.

toolbox1234 said:

When Win 7 comes along, it decides all my drives are external because there is no way it can tell.

Click to expand...

Windows 7 doesn't make that decision, the motherboard, BIOS, and hard drive does. I've had two different boards (intel D975XBX2 and current Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5) with Windows 7 and none of them had\has that issue.

My two cents

Wishmaster said:

At any count, out of curiosity, I upgraded the AHCI driver to the Intel one (v9.6.0.1014).

Click to expand...

I have the older driver and still haven't seen what the OP is describing.

Wishmaster said:

However, i am curious about 1 thing. my motherboard has a ICH10 SB, NOT a ICH10R. (Fine by me as I do not RAID)
As you can see in snip 2 though, the Intel driver installed as ICH10R.
Will this be a issue?

Click to expand...

I have ICH10R as well but don't use RAID, however I do have AHCI enabled and AHCI is a subset of RAID.

Again...

For Windows 10, this answer worked for me: How can I remove the option to eject SATA drives from the Windows 7 tray icon? - Super User
Easy! (BTW, I had to reboot 2 times and the changes took.)

toolbox1234 said:

I found a solution at My internal SATA device appears in Devices and Printers and in the Safely Remove Hardware area of the system tray?

Click to expand...

The above link was broken. Try: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ices-and/722221d6-d59c-4cf7-803c-8203e6344b93

I have this issue with XP on one computer. It 'see's' my (sata) cd/dvd rom as usb, & it can be removed, till re-boot.

Also, sometimes, an hdd connected via esata, does not go away when hot-swapped, sometimes, it does, no problem. The cd rom is always 'D' drive, I've accidently removed it, with no issues, unless I need it, , , re-boot time then, , ,

-c-

Not a problem with 7 <-its on a Toshiba laptop which has one esata port on it.

cornemuse said:

I have this issue with XP on one computer. It 'see's' my (sata) cd/dvd rom as usb, & it can be removed, till re-boot.

Also, sometimes, an hdd connected via esata, does not go away when hot-swapped, sometimes, it does, no problem. The cd rom is always 'D' drive, I've accidently removed it, with no issues, unless I need it, , , re-boot time then, , ,

Not a problem with 7 <-its on a Toshiba laptop which has one esata port on it.

Click to expand...

XP is no longer a Microsoft supported operating system and is well past end of life. I tried working this problem from a Windows 7 aspect. Only problem is that I am experiencing the issue in Windows 10.

The registry structure in Windows 10 is different than the registry structure in Windows 7. If you are looking for help with an XP problem you need to post to a forum for XP. Just like I need to peruse and post, if necessary, to the Windows 10 Forums for answers.

The solution mentioned here is as irrelevant to my situation as it is to yours.

Happy hunting.

Some BIOSes have a "Removable" option that can be toggled on or off for each individual SATA port.

alphaniner said:

Some BIOSes have a "Removable" option that can be toggled on or off for each individual SATA port.

Click to expand...

Correct, a switch to enable or disable hot swap capabilities for a specific SATA port. (see attached)
But disabling hot swap did nothing in my case. The devices still show up in removable devices and as Portable devices in Device Manager, so that is just one more way to not correct this problem.

Sorry to hear that. It makes a difference for me in W7. I ran W10 briefly but don't remember how it behaved.

alphaniner said:

Sorry to hear that. It makes a difference for me in W7. I ran W10 briefly but don't remember how it behaved.

Click to expand...

Early on in the Windows 10 rollout the system still had some issues. I've loaded it over 8.1 and backed it off several times. I currently have Windows 10 Pro installed again. Seems to be pretty stable. The portable device entries and SATA drives showing up as removable is an issue that's been around since Windows 7 possibly earlier. It's doesn't really harm anything as far as I know. But, it would be nice to know at least WHY Microsoft designed that behavior in to Windows in the first place and offer a workaround to those who desire it.