[E6500][esata][RAID port multiplier] Raid 1 enclosure not regnosized using the esata port

Hi there,

I'm getting desperate as my investigation reaches a dead end.... I've been googling for a week. Even if many users seems had this ìssue like me, I tried many tricks they found but still no luck

Here's my story and, let's say, my analysis:

I bought a generic 2 HD sata2 RAID1 enclosure based on the chipset Silicon Image SteelVine 5744. It can be used in USB or eSATA2. This embedded chipset (named SiL5744) is known (understand "claimed") to auto-handle Sata I/II and host sata2 controllers that not support the port multiplier feature. The HD are two Samsung F1 1To. There's no jumper to rollback to SATA 1.5Go on them, you can only do it by flashing the HD's bios, however we don't need to do it as I wrote just before, the SiL5744 supports SATA 3Go natively.

The enclosure works pretty well with USB, but *not* in eSATA : the E6500 freezes/hangs just after the POST step (a potential driver issue with the installed vista 64bits is not the reason then). As soon has I disconnect the eSATA cable, the system recovers and continues as normal.

What I've tried/done so far :

Both E6500's BIOS SATA mode AHCI and IRRT mode were tested,
Intel Matrix driver and software was updated to the latest 8.7.0.1007 version (AHCI and IRRT),
The SiL5744 chip was upgraded to its latest firmware as well (in case of...)

In order to verify the esata cable, the HDs and the enclosure itself, I succeed to :

- Use the enclosure's RAID1 feature when using the USB connection, I could partition,format, and read/write on the logical volume
- directly connect *one* HD (Samsung F1 1To) to the E6500's esata port -(I have a sata2esata cable), Vista installed it and I was able to use it as normal, even the hotswap feature seemed to work fine (I unkindly removed it). I could so test both HD individually this way... On the enclosure hardware side, everything looks fine then.




An IMPORTANT thing : The E6500's ICH8/9-M sata host controller seems to support the Port Multiplier feature *ONLY* on sata port 0 -as a bubble message from the Intel Matrix soft sometimes shows up-, but this is exactly where the internal HD is plugged on the motherboard I found nowhere you can change the internal sata port ID (switch,bios,ect...). I think this is the key of the problem that seems to be a dumb port conflict, because the esata port is in fact the port sata 4 (the DVDRW drive is sata 1, dock's esata is 5 for instance). If somebody knows how to swap the sata port ID, I think I won't be toasted !

Thank you Community for your help

-Yann

 

If this occurs during system boot - bios post it's not a driver issue.

Some things I would try;
- To eliminate possible IRRT issues, system bios should be set to AHCI mode without Sil5744 unit connected, then shutdown.

-Connect Sil unit to eSATA port, turn on system and go into system bios again. Be sure that the Sil drives are not set as boot devices and removed from the bios boot order list. Otherwise the system will try to load Sil5744 boot bios which may be causing the freeze issue.

- Be sure the Sil5744 is set to JBOD single drive configuration (no raid setup)

If all else fails you can always pick up a 2 port Sil based eSATA express card for very cheap ($44) here

 

Thank you for your answer !

Unfortunately I already did these sequence tests, first, the SiL5744 doesn't display any message POST, and second, the enclosure I have only proposes the RAID0 or the RAID1 choice (via a switch), the JBOD feature is not cabled and so not available...

Sure... It's very frustrating when you got this laptop valued 2000€ equipped with a esata capable controller. Anyway if it's the only remaining solution, I guess I have no more choice...

-Y

 

I think I can confirm this exact problem. In my case, it's a Mappower TB32SC external eSATA RAID, which appears to use a steelvine controller. If I leave the device plugged in to the eSATA port on my Dell e6500, the computer fails to boot into Vista 64.

If I unplug it, allow it to boot, then plug it in, the OS becomes mostly unresponsive, (maybe responds to input 1 second out of every 30 seconds)

The system immediately becomes responsive again after I unplug the drive. Sometimes the Nividia driver crashes and has to be restarted by the computer.

As part of my troubleshooting I ended up installing a more recent version of the Matrix Storage Console from the Intel website, and that fixed the "unresponsive system" issue, but now I get a popup that says it detected the device but will only support port 0 of the SATA. I was certain that this eSATA port could do port multiplication, but it appears this is not the case?

No drive is actually mounted in windows, and the drive manager doesn't see anything either.

This appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the Intel controller and the Steelvine controller.


Arrrrghh.

 

are you guys kidding me? there is no solution to this? I have the kingwin enclosure, dual bay. i have the same problems has izykkkkkkkkk.

bump for updates

 

Have you upgraded to Intel Matrix Storage V 8.8 (which Dell has now put on its download site)? This fixed the latency problem and it might have fixed a few other bugs as well.

John

 

so If I run the enclosure under "normal" then the eSata works but shows only 1 disk. Intel storage manager says I have 2 ports available but I am not have port multiplier.

I am gonna do that then.

 

so now when I connected it doesn't stutter anymore. but matrix storage keeps refreshing and the enclosure doesn't pair. it's an improvement. It doesn't make any sense to me because the eSata port works under normal mode. why shouldn't work under raid 1? It's still only one hdd that the OS sees.

 

No chance here neither with the Intel driver v8.8..... However I was really happy about the latency fix BTW.

I bought an eSATA expresscard controller (30€), and my appliance is now connected and working using esata.

Too bad....

-Y

 

so the problem is incompatibility between the intel controller and the chip on the enclosure? To me doesn't make any sense that this chip is incompatible because Intel chips are everywhere, why wouldn't they make it compatible and lose a chunk of the market? I am gonna call Kingwin and see what they say.