Solved My external eSata drive not seen.

[bertie11]

I had an external eSata drive installed and working in an Akasa enclosure. It all worked well until I had to change my 2 computers around, I had to uncable the laptop to which it is connected, When I reconnected it, the external drive wasn't picked up by Win 7 but after a lot of faffing around it did come back. I'm not aware of doing anything specific to get it back. Last night however, I forgot to use 'Remove hardware safely' in the system tray and shut the laptop down, then turned the external drive off.

So now, when I boot up the laptop the external is missing again and I notice that the little icon in the system tray (remove hardware) is missing as well. It doesn't show in Disk Management, Windows Explorer or Powerdesk.

How do I get my drive back and why is this happening? There is nothing in the BIOS to do with eSata, this is an HP DV6-2113SA Pavilion laptop.

 

[Dave76]

Check that the eSATA and power cables are securely connected.

If you have another eSATA cable try swapping it out.

The 'Safely Remove Hardware' won't show up if the connections aren't making contact.

Most laptop eSATA connections don't have a solid feeling connector make sure it's working correctly by plugging in another eSATA cable and by plugging your external into a different computer.

 

[bertie11]

Hi Dave76

You beat me to it! I found another eSata cable, one that I had already trimmed the connector casing on and that worked. It was one I had bought separately but I used the one that came with the drive and it did work for a few months but then started playing up.

Problem solved, thanks!

 

[Dave76]

Glad to hear you got it fixed.

 

[bertie11]

Looks like I spoke too soon!

I tested it by turning off drive then on again several times and Win 7 picked it up each time. I turned the laptop off/on several times still OK. So I had one working cable and I thought I would trim back the connectors on the spare cable but when I plugged that one in, failure.

now, whichever cable I use, whichever way round I connect the drive has gone missing.

I should have well alone I suppose. I don't have another system with eSata to try the cables on

 

[foros]

So the problem was not the cable.

 

[Dave76]

Is the power supply for the external working, light on the external comes on?

 

[bertie11]

My apologies people, I did get it working some time ago but forgot to post back with results. The main problem was the switch on the rear of the enclosure (usb/sata) which was rather a floppy connection. I taped it in the sata position and everything was fine. It seems sometimes when I put my hand round the back to turn it off I was disturbing the switch!

I also started using Zentimo xStorage Manager instead of Windows 'safe to remove'.