E6320 - Problem

Well, I knew things were going too smoothly. Either docked or undocked, the machine (win 7 pro) no longer recognizes my eSata HDD. It shows up in the device manager, the Safely Remove Hardware and Devices and Printers but not in windows explorer. The same is true for my USB 2.0 Seagate FreeAgent external HDD.

Is there something I'm missing in a windows setting that may have screwed up or does this seem like a hardware problem. Other memory sticks are recognized in the usb port and the eSata/usb port.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Has it lost the drive letter? Check disk management.

I have also had problem in the past with the Intel storage driver being slow to recognise changes in connected devices. It won't recognise a new device until it's been a couple of minutes after you removed the previous device.

John

 

Yes, it (the eSata drive) shows up in disk management and Easeus partition manager but without a drive letter. Also, when I boot from the Paragon Free Recovery stick, the recovery environment recognizes the drive.

One other issue I had which I did not mention was that all this came about when I tried to make a backup and the eSata speeds dropped to near zero.

I have now performed a system restore back to the point ( a few days ago) of the last major change - the install of Apple iTunes. This seems to have helped since I can now see the drive as before and do a restore at the appropriate speeds. The usb drive (Seagate FreeAgent) is still not assigned a drive letter - can I do this from disk management without screwing up other drive assignments (i.e., is the assigned drive letter permanent?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Yes, give it a letter. It should be permanent and is more likely to be so if you use a letter well down the alphabet such as S (for Seagate).

John

 

O.K., Did it and seems to have worked. Any idea as to why this issue occurred? Was it really the iTunes install that did it?

Thank for the help.
Harvey

 

I don't know why it happens but share your suspicion about iTunes. It's something I wouldn't want to install on my computer.

John

 

I've seen iTunes cause strange problems before, so I wouldn't be surprised. Then again, it is an Apple product, there's no reason to be surprised if it breaks something...I always tell customers to install Apple software at their own risk.

 

Well, the slow eSata problem came back - Paragon hung again on a test. The regular win 7 System Back Image appeared to function normally (tried this right after Paragon hung). This now suggest either the Paragon software as the possible culprit or the external drive as a problem. My son has an identical drive and I will try to test it today. Any suggestions for a good free backup program which supports AHCI mode, eSata and SSD?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Is your eSATA device a direct connection to the drive or to a device which contains an interface which also supports USB? I think that the chip used in some of the latter can't handle the pace and fall over. I had similar problems with one of those (bought off ebay) and bought a branded one which then gave me no problems. I never had transfer problems when using a cable with direct connection onto a bare drive.

John

 

The external drive is a western digital drive which supports eSata and USB 2.0 (separate ports). Also it has its own power and is actually the drive that wd sells for expanding the storage capability for a TV DVR using eSata. The other eSata ports are the ones on the laptop and the E-Port docking station.

I just downloaded and installed Macrium Reflect Free. The first image it made was at the expected speed. Also, the rescue CD did recognize AHCI mode, the external eSata drive and my system SSD. So far so good. A surprising bonus was that MR Free also allows one to mount an image and extract whatever files one may need - not possible with the Paragon Free software. Also, the download MR file was less than 1/3 the size of the Paragon file.

I will continue to try to make images today and tomorrow to see what happens. If that fails, the next step is borrow my son's external drive and try that when I get back from TDY (Mon thru Fri.)

Thanks,
Harvey