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[PLEASE HELP ME ASAP] eSATA with EX38-DS4 on Windows XP SP3

758 Views 5 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  linderman, 
A
Hi Everyone,
So I have a gigabyte EX38-DS4 motherboard on a custom-built Desktop PC with Windows XP SP3. The situation is that I have the eSATA bracket that came with it connected to the motherboard and I want to use an external hard drive which I have built on the eSATA bracket. Everytime I plug it in, I can browse through files and the folders fine. However, when I try to get files onto the external hard drive or take files off of it, then, the transfer speed slows down until my system freezes and I have to reboot.

Please note that I do not want to have to reinstall windows or change out my motherboard.

I have spoken to gigabyte's technical support but they were not able to replicate the problem.

Does anyone know what the problem could be? Please answer me as soon as possible.

OS: Windows XP SP3
RAM: 3GB DDR2 Memory
HDD: 250GB SATA HDD and an 80GB SATA HDD
DVD: SATA DVDRW with dual layer support
Motherboard BIOS version: F5

Hope to hear from someone soon as possible,
Adiman423
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linderman
does the e-sata drive behave this strangely when you boot with the drive connected ?

I find e-sata drives can be really quirky when you are trying to use them as "hot -swap" drives
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If I boot with the eSATA external drive connected, then it basically makes the machine think that there are no hard drives connected. I should also mention at this point, that I am powering it using a standard USB 2.0 cable.

Additionally, I have taken the hard drive out of the eSATA enclosure and it works just fine!

The other options I could think of doing are as follows
1) using a PCI express eSATA controller
2) disconnecting all the wires from the back of my PC. Then plugging each one in to see what is causing the problem.
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linderman
do you have the E-sata bracket that comes with the motherboard connected with a sata cable from the bracket to a sata port which is NOT a raid port ? should be connected to "usually" orange sata connector ports on a gigaybte board

power need to come from a molex or sata power plug from inside the computer case & power supply

have you tried connecting the bare drive to the sata ports and giving it power ?

your problem could be the external enclosure ?

pics of what you are doing would be most beneficaial
]
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just a quick update here. I have tried plugging in just the hard drive by taking it out of the enclosure and it works just fine of the power port on the eSATA bracket. I have also tried to power it by plugging it into a powered USB hub and nothing happens. I am now down to trying those orange SATA ports from the board like you mentioned linderman or changing the enclosure. If all else fails I could just find an enclosure with USB3 and put in a USB 3 controller using a PCI or PCI express slot on my machine.
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linderman
sounds to me like you have a bad enclosure?

the drive will work faster on the sata ports -vs- the usb ports

the drive when connected to the sata ports via the e-sata bracket is then operating dirtectly on the main bus controller / anything connected via USB is going to run slower because it becomes a victim of the less efficient "other" bridge (south bridge -vs- north bridge)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_(computing)
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