Bootup from Esata drive

I have a ESsata encloure with WD5000BEVT.
Is it possible for me to "boot" from this Esata drive instead of the notebook harddisk?

 

should be as long as you have integrated esata ie you're not using expresscard esata

 

It is possible: I've done it on my Dell E6400 which has integrated eSATA.

John

 

Have been reading your earlier posts...have you gotten your drive to be recognized at all ? I have an HP HDX 18t and my external drive works fine when USB-connected, but is not recognized at all when connected by eSata to Sata cable. In order to boot normally from eSata, I'd expect the external drive to show up in the BIOS, but mine does not.

I'm beginning to wonder if it is cable problem, with the eSata cable not fully inserting into combination USB-eSata port that HP uses ??

Thanks,
G

 

Hi guilliamo,
I managed to change the "rock" enclosure to a "vantec" enclosure.
It is still not recognised by BIOS (HP DV5t). But, after bootup in Vista, i am able to see the ESata Harddisk.

My friend tested the "rock" enclosure and told me nothing wrong with it, although he mentioned that he tried with a few different cables.

 

John,
I suppose to bootup in eSATA, it must be recognised by the BIOS and you are able to change the bootup sequence?

 

Wow! Glad to see you are making some progress.

When you say the your eSata drive is "still not recognized by BIOS", I wonder if that is completely true ? In the minimalist INSYDEH2O BIOS in my HDX 18t, I only get "Notebook Hard Drive" as a boot option, even when two internal SATA drives are installed. However, EasyBCD (neosmartdotnet) DOES "see" the second hard drive, and will allow booting from it.

I'll have to try a different case tomorrow!

Thanks,
G

 

guilliamo,
the HP bios only shows bootup "Notebook Hard drive" and "DVD rom".
EasyBCD is the boot manager?

 

Yes, EasyBCD gives a nice GUI to enhance the Vista boot manager. I use it to dual boot Vista & Mac OSX from my internal hard drives.

But you make my point...if our minimalist HP BIOS only shows "Notebook Hard Drive" even when multiple internal hard drives are installed, then I suspect that there would also be no explicit indication in the BIOS if an eSata drive is detected.

G

 

xyzabcxx: No luck for me with a different case. I also tried a different cable, but it is the same design as the first, so may not prove anything.

Every indication I get is that one or more of the following are true:

1) My eSata port is dead
2) My cables are bad
3) The eSata port is not actually active until some driver loads that is missing in my Vista 64

Can you share with me how your now-working drive shows up in device manager and Intel Matrix Manager ??

Thanks,
G

 

I know on my Gateway I could not boot from the eSATA controller (SiI 3531). Simple reason is because the BIOS does not support it. If you can see your drive in Windows but not in the BIOS there's no way you're booting from it.

 

Will post screenshot later when at home. Btw, does HP provides a support hotline in your location? If yes, is it possible to just confirm with them if the HP notebooks does support bootup from eSATA device?

 

Yes. My E6400 has options to set the HDD interface to IRRT, AHCI and ATA. ATA is for backwards compatibility and won't see the eSATA port. It is also possible that some BIOSes don't support booting from eSATA even if the hardware is present.

John

 

There are several issues here stirring in the same pot:

1) Is a connected eSata drive detected in the BIOS ?
2) Does a connected eSata drive explicitly show up in a BIOS screen ?
3) Is there an ability to select in the BIOS a hard drive other than the primary internal Sata drive as the boot drive ?
4) Does a connected eSata hard drive load in the operating system (Vista64 in my case).

In my view, the answers to these questions are complicated by the minimalist BIOS that current (and recent) HP laptops use. Actually, I think the INSYDEH2O "BIOS" is EFI emulating BIOS, but that is a detail.

I have not asked HP directly for advice, because I'm pretty sure it would be a useless exercise. My HDX 18t takes 2 internal Sata hard drives, but as discussed earlier, the only hard drive option that ever shows up in the BIOS is a single entry "NoteBook Hard Drive" whether one or two hard drives are installed.

Since I can use the Vista boot loader to boot to my secondary internal drive (via EasyBCD from neosmartdotnet), I conclude the the secondary drive is DETECTED in the BIOS, but you just can't tell it from LOOKING at any BIOS screen. To put this another way, my second internal hard drive is perfectly bootable, but it cannot be selected as the boot drive in BIOS because HP's BIOS only supports booting from the primary internal Sata drive.

Now eSata COULD be different...an eSata connected hard drive might show up explicitly in the BIOS, but I suspect not.

What I'm getting at is that the true test for whether current/recent HP laptops can boot from eSata will most likely be answered by determining if EasyBCD (or some other boot loader) will boot from it.

Of course, right now I'm stuck at my eSata drive not being detected at all in Vista 64.

G

 

Hi John,

I have E6400 too. I managed to change from IRRT to AHCI and boot into XP successfully in the internal drive. But when installing this working internal drive into an eSATA enclosure, plug it in, it failed to boot from eSATA.

I can see the "eSATA" in the boot list when pressing F12 during the BIOS startup, but once I really choose the eSATA, it comlained "no boot device available". It doesn't even start loading the OS.

How exactly did you set the BIOS to boot from eSATA drive?

thanks,
ibm