Hot Swapping Seagate HDD on ASUS Mobo

[Lotus289]

Hopefully this hasn't been asked a million times. I'm trying to set up a Seagate HDD for Hot Swapping on my new computer. The Mobo is an ASUS P8Z77-V LX running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I bought an HDD Rack for a 5.25" bay so I could swap the drive out easily. The Bios is set to AHCI and the SATA Port that the HDD is on is set to Enable Hot Swap. With the computer powered down, I plugged the drive in and it loaded right up. The only problem is that it's showing up as an Internal Hard Drive instead of a "Removable Storage" device. I'm under the assumption that it should appear here, that way I can Safely Remove the drive so it'll spin down, power off, and I can remove it without turning the computer off. At least that's my goal.

Can anyone shed any light on this, or point me in the right direction to get the computer to see this SATA Port as a Removable Storage Device?

 

[essenbe]

The drive should be hot swappable if your sata controller is in AHCI mode, which it should be in the Asus Z77 by default. If you go to bios, advanced settings, sata configuration, you will see the drive if it is connected to an Intel port. There is an option to make it hot swappable there. Enable it, and you should be good. It will not be listed as a removable drive, but is still hot swappable, or at least should be.

 

[Lotus289]

Ok, that's how it's currently sitting. But don't I have to spin the HDD down before I remove it? I would guess it may damage it if I just pull it while its spinning. And in order to "Safely Remove" the drive it has to be listed as Removable Hardware.

 

[essenbe]

If it is hot swappable you don't have to safely remove. At least I don't. If it is hot swap enabled in bios, just spin it down before removing it. Are you talking about an external enclosure or dock? I have mine that way, and I just turn the power to the external off. After that, it is off and disconnected from the computer. Remove it if you want to, the computer will not even realize it.

 

[Lotus289]

It's in an internal rack in a 5.25" bay. The rack doesn't have a power button so I don't have the option to manually kill the power.

 

[Lotus289]

I took the chance and just unplugged the HDD while the system is running and it works just fine. So it appears that as long as the SATA Port is has Hot Swapping Enabled, you can load and remove hard drives without a problem. Sweet, let the super speedy backups begin. No more transferring over USB 2.0.

 

[essenbe]

Does your board have an esata port? if it does, get an external sata enclosure with it's own power source, I use this one. It is about as fast as an internal hard drive and you can boot from it with an esata connection. there are many other choices too.
Thermaltake ST0005U-R Black External Enclosure - Newegg.com

If you don't have an esata port on your motherboard, get one of these with an external esata enclosure or dock.
Nippon Labs eSATA Bracket One SATA II and One eSATA 2 ports combo bracket for SATA I and SATA II Hard Drive Model ESATAB-C - Newegg.com

It will make your life much easier than what you are doing. I also have one of these, it works great, but I don't use it anymore. But it's perfect for what you are doing now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993031

 

[Lotus289]

Well, my whole purpose of this setup was to eliminate all the power and data cables when I was doing my backups, while upgrading from USB 2.0 transfer speeds to SATA 3Gb/s speeds. So I bought this rack:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX-C525 5.25" SATA Trayless Hot Swap Mobile Rack for 3.5" SATA I/II/III HDD
and it works great. I just took my Seagate External drive I've been using, opened up the case, and use that hard drive in the rack instead of using cables. Win Win.

 

[essenbe]

Looks like a good dock. It should work well for you. It just does not have a power on/off switch.