SATA drives : internal appear as External drives !

[PivertMe]

Hi

very bizarre :
- 3 of my 6 drives SATA connected to internal SATA connectors on board ( Z87 Deluxe)
- are shown in explorer "my computer" as hard disks ( while correctly DVD and USB are in removable drives list)
- however these 3 drives appear in the list of removable drives Under the W7 utility "safely remove" !

That could lead to confusion when removing removable drives !

Any explanation ? Can I correct this ?

I think that it is possible that these drives have been formatted and partitioned whiel on a SATA-to USB dock ( when PC was Under repair). Have tried to delete all partitions on one of those drives, and recreate partitions Under W7 with Acronis Disk Director, but no change.
Or should I remove them from Computer Management ?

TIA for help please !

Regards

 

[pbcopter]

It is not bizarre but a result of drives being connected to ports that allow hot swapping (set to AHCI)

One possibility is to install the Intel AHCI drivers instead of the stock drivers that are part of the Windows 7 DVD.

Another is this:

FIX: AHCI/SATA drives showing in "Safely Remove Hardware"

This works for the Intel controller.



If you are connected to another controller, go to the Device manager and right click on that controller and select properties.

Then under the Policies tab, you should be able to uncheck the box that allows safe removal.

 

[Mellon Head]

Some BIOSs have a setting to make SATA drives into eSATA drives. My BIOS has that feature. I can assign any SATA drive to eSATA.

Maybe that's what's happened to the OP in this case. Check the BIOS and see if any of the drives are set to eSATA.

 

[TVeblen]

As mentioned above, this normally happens when running an Intel chipset on the generic Windows driver.
If your motherboard manufacturer has an AHCI driver then use that.
If not then you can install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver offered by your motherboard manufacturer (or Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver for older machines) and this will normally clear that problem up.

Please note that the registry edit method is a workaround, not a solution. It just hides the notification.

 

[pbcopter]

Please note that the registry edit method is a workaround, not a solution. It just hides the notification.

Why is it not a solution? The concern is avoiding confusion when removing external devices.

 

[TVeblen]

That could be true - if that is your concern.

But if you want your devices running at their true potential then you need to be running the best driver for that device.
I always recommend that folks run the most recent, updated drivers for their devices.