Help with eSATA Expresscard and ext harddrive

I just picked up the SIIG eSATA II ExpressCard RAID, thinking that I could just plug in my WD My Book external hard drive and have it come up as a drive. But when I plug it in, the drive turns on, but Windows doesn't recognize it, not even in Disk Management. When I use the drive's USB 2.0 connection, it works just fine.

Opening up SIIG's RAID utility (SATARAID5), the drive appears but is shown as 'available' to create a RAID partition. I don't want to create a RAID array with it; I just want to access it like any normal ext. hard drive.

Anyone have any experience with this particular card? It seems like I need to format the drive within this SATARAID5 program in order to use it, but that's not an option since I already have data on the drive.

Thanks!

 

I have a Silicon image expresscard esata card and a WD my book esata/usb drive.

the usb works fine but i cant detect the drive at all on esata, not even in the sataraid5 program.

i think the expresscard itself is working because the sataraid5 program picsk everything up ok... except the disk.

what steps did you take and i'll see if i can get to the same stage as you.

 

What do you see in Device Manager? You should have a Silicon Image SiI 3531 controller listed under the storage controllers.

I just plugged my card in again to test it and it needed me to show it the driver and then reboot. Once rebooted, I plugged in the HDD. It didn't show up in Device Manager. Then I remembered - change the switch on the enclosure from USB to eSATA. Whereupon the HDD showed up in Device Manager.

Do you have a switch on your enclosure?

John

 

I have the SATA controller showing up in the device manager but no disk shows up.

There are no switches visible on the enclosure.

Im going to try it on my friends laptop - i suspect the cable may not be fitting completely into the socket on the enclosure.

 

I was a little surprised to discover that on my setup the cable plug fitted one way up on the card and the other way up on the enclosure.

I've just looked in the guide for the WD My Book and I see:

Did you try this? Also, does the HDD think it is in eSATA mode? Both rings on the indicator should flash together.

John

 

ok i tried it on my friends laptop and when i plugged the cable in the my book the first time, it turned itself on and the green light flashed on the expresscard. however that was all we got.

then i tried wiggling the cable around and held it in a position where it recognised the drive for about a minute but as soon as i moved it, the connection was lost.

so basically its a dodgy connection between the hard disk and the cable.

im hoping i can just get another cable and that its not the enclosure itself.

thank you for your help so far.