In the event that you haven't verified the controller installation, check out item#8 the readme file in the driver download. It has to be either the cable, controller or driver/driver installation.
Is this a new card? If so, I would call tech support. I could, of course, be wrong, but it seems unlikely to me that this is a windows issue.
James
Last edited by James Colbert; 08 May 2011 at 22:04.
Just to clarify...
Your screenshot from Diskmgmt does not show Disk0, which is your "first hard drive" and from what I can deduce contains (a) 100MB "system reserved" partition, (b) 686GB C partition containing Win7, and (c) 11GB D partition for "system recovery" or something from HP. All together this looks like it only adds up to 800GB or so, which is an odd size for a drive. So maybe I'm misreading the partially obscured partition size values. Maybe it's a 1TB drive and there's either unallocated space, or I'm just reading some partial values incorrectly.
It's actually hard to tell precisely, because your screenshot isn't large enough. You really should first maximize the Diskmgmt window and then spread all the horizontal columns so that all the text in each column can be seen and read. Also, in the vertical dimension, you can pull the horizontal separator up from where it is by default, so that more visible area is allocated to the lower "graphic" pane to show more drives. Once everything is really visible (including your THREE hard drives), then take the screenshot.
But it's obvious that only Disk1 (your G drive) and Disk2 (the one you cannot assign a drive letter to, but which shows as ONLINE) are visible in the current screenshot. I really would have liked to have seen all three of your hard drives, and have all of the partitions size numbers and descriptive text in all columns completely visible.
If you can post another shot that's fully readable, that would be helpful
But... if you look at your DISK2 which shows that it is online (in the lower graphic pane area) but does not show up listed (in the upper details pane), you'll notice that the cross-hatched space does not show NTFS. If the drive had been formatted with NTFS it would have shown NTFS... as your other DISK0 (when you show it to us in a new screenshot) and DISK1 partitions show.
Now I suppose there may be another electrical or cabling or hardware explanation for why this ONLINE drive is not getting a drive letter assigned, but for sure it would need to have an NTFS file system on it in order for that to be possible. I see no NTFS in that graphic, and that bothers me.
Now it's generally true that when a drive or partition IS recognized and doesn't get a drive letter assigned, it usually still shows up in the upper pane... just with no "NTFS" in the "file system" column. In your case, you don't even have a row in the upper pane showing the drive at all and with no NTFS file system in that cell of that row. You have nothing in the upper pane. That's directly tied to the "needs to be refreshed" message, because Diskmgmt clearly WANTS to populate a row in the upper pane for this DISK2 drive that it clearly sees is present, but can't figure it out.
And yet, Windows sees the drive and considers it "online"... and presents its size in the lower pane (as a 1.5TB drive before whatever formatting is on it), although it shows no recognizable file system for that drive. That is why I suggested the right-click FORMAT approach, to plant NTFS on it. I honestly am dubious that it is NTFS and not HFS.
I agree, you will obviously lose whatever data is on that drive with FORMAT. I didn't know you had data on it that you didn't want to lose.
Anyway, this is certainly an odd combination of clues. But then I've never worked with an eSATA to USB situation.
Maybe it's nothing more than a cable/adapter/hardware problem, but it definitely looks very strange.
Perhaps I am going to show my ignorance here, but I have 2 Go Flex externals. I have read the forums and descriptions. I am not familiar with your adaptor. However according to the forums, in order to use esata it is necessary to have power over esata. In other words, the esata connection provides the power to operate the drive. By hooking it up with a USB and esata it may be that disk management is confused of which interface to use. There are situations with a dock where 2 connections are used for power but they are both the same interface, USB 2.0. Perhaps if you have a true power over esata adaptor, it will work with just the esata cable connected. The adaptor may be to give you a choice as to which interface to use.
As nitroman84 and now essenbe have mentioned, this may indeed be a factor. Given that there is only an internal and external esata connector and no USB port on the adapter, as can be seen here:I'm using the eSATA/USB adapter with an eSATAp to eSATA and USB cable along with an IOGEAR GICe711S3 Pci controller card
IOGEAR - GICe711S3 - 1 Internal + 1 External SATA 3.0Gbps Dual Profile PCI Express Card
Also, since the neither the specs nor the manual (is this your manual?: Drivers & Manuals - IOGEAR ) make any mention of the card being USB powered (unlikely), it is likely that the card itself is powered via the PCI bus. That being the case, a reassessment of what your configuration is could be helpful.
It's hard to imagine how you are setup, and a few images might help, but do you have the sata (or estat) connection and the usb connection at the drive? If between the drive and a USB port on your system, unplug the USB to see if your problem is corrected.
James
@James Colbert Basically, this is my set up. I have the eSATA adapter from Seagate attached to my drive. It should use eSATA for data and USB for power. (I looked at the plug & has all the connections for eSATA and only 2 connections for USB.) Then, the adapter is connection to the cable I got from Amazon [Link]. The male eSATA is connected to the PCI card. The USB is connected to a USB on the back of the motherboard.
I have not yet tried to see if unplugging the USB before power up and then plugging it in works.
You did find the right card & according to Windows, the drivers are up to date. (BTW, You have the wrong Drivers & Manual page. Here is the correct one [Link]. I have the 3GBps version of the card that is PCI express x1. The link to the card is right though.)
@Everyone else I will hopefully response by the end of the day (Eastern US). I will include another screenshot of the Disk Management that is fully open later.
Btw, (C:\) is my main OS hard drive. (D:\) is the partition of the original 750GB hard drive that came with the computer. (G:\) is another hard drive (not in RAID) that is 1TB. My computer is an HP Pavilion p6240f. Here are the specs [Link]. (I removed the wireless card to open up another PCI express slot since I'm using ethernet.)
Last edited by smithsunknown; 09 May 2011 at 16:37.
OK everyone, I'm back.
1) Here is the screenshots people were looking for. [Regular system for reference] [Connected by USB only] [Connected by eSATA] (these are specifically for @dsperber)
Look at my previous post for explanation for all the drives. The rest are virtual drives from MagicISO.
2) I tried leaving the USB unplugged when the computer started up, then plugging it in after Windows had started, & I get the same thing. I cannot use the drive and it says it is online in Disk Management but no drive letter assigned.
BTW I tried the cable out with another eSATA drive that I have. The cable doesn't seem to be the problem. It works fine. This one has an external power supply unlike the GoFlex. Here's a link to the drive. [Link]
Last edited by smithsunknown; 09 May 2011 at 22:02.
Thank you much. Very very helpful.
Just one more nit on the maximized DISKMGMT window itself... You can actually move the horizontal separator line between the upper pane area (where the details are listed) and the lower pane area (where the drives are mapped graphically). You can drag it up to wherever you want, and probably the ideal place to put it for a full-screen screenshot is right under the last row of the upper pane. This really maximizes the number of drives shown graphically in the lower pane, using all available space in the maximized window below the upper pane details list.
That way, there's not all that white space in between. In order to clearly see you screenshot, I keep clicking the little Firefox "magnifier" cursor to enlarge it (up to fullsize for maximum readability). If my monitor is smaller than your monitor, I now have horizontal and vertical scrollbars to navigate. If you'd moved the lower pane right up under the upper pane I wouldn't have had to scroll vertically down to see the drives in the lower portion of the screenshot and then scroll back vertically up to see the upper portion pane.
Just saying... (but honestly, many thanks for these).
Sure now looks like a cabling-related issue on this drive, eSata vs. USB. I know ZERO about this hardware, and not a partitioning/NTFS issue.
I defer to others who know about this hardware.
Do you have access to another computer with esata that you could plug the drive with it's usb>sata adapter? If it works on that system, you would eliminate one more possibility. Then it would be down to the card or drivers.
If he has already copied data to the disk via USB 3.0, that indicates that it is not a disk or formatting issue. This may be completely off topic but.. I had an external enclosure and put a new HD in it. The enclosure was USB 2.0 and esata. I used the USB to partition and format the disk. I next connected it by esata and had the same problem Smithsunknown is having. After about 3 days I decided to try esata again and it worked perfectly and I have no clue as to why. What I do know is that each disk in or attached to your system is given a unique identifier by windows. What I don't know is when windows issues that identifier, does it recognize it by the connectivity method. If so, that could be the issue the OP is having. Does any of this make sense?
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