e-Sata hotswap / hotplug not working on Seven

Greetings.

I have a quite annoying problem regarding my E-Sata functionality:

I'm using an Icy-Box E-Sata case that lets me swap sata drives quickly as I push around my dataloads. That is, that's how it worked this morning before I switched from Vista to Seven.

Before, I could switch off the drive, swap drives, switch the case on again, and Vista automatically recognized the drive again and added it back to the System.

Now, I can switch off and swap, but once i switch it on again, Seven won't recognize the drive until I search for it in the Device Management.

This quite puzzles me, since I did nothing else than change the OS. I didn't change any BIOS settings, but just to be sure, I checked: AHCI is still on.

I'm running a Gigabyte P965 DS3 (ICH8), the Jmicron Controller is disabled and all drives are connected to the Intel controller. The latest intel Chipset driver has been installed.

Again, hotplugging / hotswapping worked under Vista without further ado, the hardware hasn't been changed, neither have the BIOS settings. I changed from Vista x64 to Seven x64.

I hope anyone can help me here, maybe I'm just forgetting something trivial..

I had a similar problem with E-SATA hot-plug on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-ud3P motherboard, it is a ICH10R Intel SouthBridge. I solved the problem by updating the Microsoft driver to the latest Intel AHCI driver (v 8.9.0.1023).

I am using Win 7 x64. Note: The AHCI option need to be selected in the BIOS.

I forgot to mention. You can enable the JMicron controller and select AHCI in the BIOS for it.
Get the latest driver at ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/
and connect your E-SATA cable to the JMicron. Maybe that will work differently.

As I said AHCI IS selected in the BIOS.

I'm not using the Jmicron controller because I didn't need it up to now, and thus I deactivated it so it won't become a possible source of problems.

Also, under Vista x64 everything worked fine on the Intel ports, that's why I'd like to continue using them.


On that topic, I checked what drivers Win7 is using and saw that they were Microsoft brand, not Intel. That'S weird since I already installed the latest chipset driver package 9.1.1.1020

Go figure...

And here's the solution:

Seems like we're back to XP niveau again: Had to download the unpacked Driver from here :

Icrontic Intel AHCI/SATA drivers for Windows 7 have arrived

And use the same old trick needed to get AHCI features running under XP: Open the iaahci.inf, replace all "DEV_2821" with "DEV_2824" and then install the modified driver via the device manager, ignoring the "not signed by microsoft" warning.

Two reboots later, the Controller is now recognized as Intel ICH8R/DH/DO SATA AHCI Controller and works like a charm once again.