I have a WD2500KS SATA2 HDD installed in a Thermaltake Silver River Duo external HDD enclosure which can be connected by either USB 2.0 or eSATA. I am also using an Asus M2N-E motherboard that has a nVidia 570 SLi chipset (MCP 55P), Win XP Home SP-2.

According to a FAQ on the nVidia website, if I am understanding it correctly, SATA drives are/can be "hot swappable". Here is what the FAQ says:

Okay, what I want to know is IF and if so, HOW, can I get this external SATA drive to be "hot swappable", i.e., be able to power it off/on without having to shut down the PC when it is connected via the eSATA cable? (This is not an issue using the USB 2.0 connection) I do not get the "safely remove hardware" icon in the System Tray when this drive/enclosure is powered on. And I cannot power it off/on using the power switch on the enclosure. Doing so crashes the system.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If I have failed to supply other necessary information, I apologize and will provide whatever else is needed to answer my question.

THANKS!

Western Digital Knowledge Base

Thanks for the reply! I was able to access the page by using part of the link provided since the actual link produced an "Operation Failed . . . Illegal Operation" error. hehe

Anyway... according to that KB article:

To disconnect a Serial ATA hard drive from the computer when the computer is running, you must first use the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on the system tray to dismount the drive from the Operating System. If the Serial ATA hard drive is not listed under the "Safely Remove Hardware" function, the motherboard or Serial ATA controller does not support hot plugging and the computer should be shut down and powered off before disconnecting the hard drive.

It would appear that my Asus M2N-E motherboard's Serial ATA controller doesn't support hot plugging since the neither of my SATA drives invoke the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the System Tray. I was under the impression that the South Bridge nVIDIA chip was what determined such features. The question now is, Is it possible to add this feature to what I have?

UPDATE on this issue. Asus tech support insists that the motherboard supports "hot swapping" but refuses to offer anything more, which I have found is typical of Asus non-support.

I decided to boot into Vista and try to power on the external enclosure to see what would happen. Bingo... the drive was almost immediately recognized and I was able to have full use of the HDD. I then flipped the power switch on the enclosure off and there were no ill affects. So, "hot swapping" works in Vista but it will not work for me in XP. Why? is the question.

These are driver issues.

The nForce drivers do not support hot swap under Vista.

They do under XP but in some cases you have to tweak a registry key - the purpose of the key is to flag the hard drives as removable. I forget the key (something under NVATA in the registry) maybe someone else knows it. I've seen it posted on EVGA boards in reference to the 680i mobo specifically.

But again on Vista it doesn't currently work.

SS

Try this guys...

-----------------------
1. Click Start -> Run
2. Execute regedit
3. Navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvata

4. Click Edit
5. Select New > DWORD value
6. Name this DWORD: DisableRemovable
7. Double click this new DWORD and set its value to one (1).
8. Close Regedit and reboot
-----------------------

As far as I know, this only works in XP, NOT Vista, as the latter is riddled with those 'basic functionality only' kinds of drivers. It's not like we get feature rich PCs to actually use those features.

Good luck.

That is for a 3Ware NCQ controller to work. You can use a Supermicro SATA SCA hot swap enclosure on a 3Ware 9650SE SATA RAID controller and get them to fail over to hot spares on RAID 1, 10, 5. On standard SATA, don't do it. You will short the drive at least and possibly the controller.

this utility will add the drives to a hotswap tray icon - http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

but for me I have to the go through the whole add new hardware to get Vista to detect the swapped drive

Nvidia's nforce Vista drives are VERY old and VERY incomplete.

It looks like they're not going to bother updating them though

I know my Gigabyte SATA2 controller states to Enable NCQ,HOTPLUG Features Dissable Raid and Set to Native Ide or Ahci.
So dissable NV Sata2 RAID Mode in the bios should do the trick instead of being a stripe the sytem will just detect the HDD's serial and brand like an ATA.

Instead of being a stripe the sytem will just detect the HDD's serial and brand like an ATA but will still appear as removable devices in the startbar.

Yeah, doesn't work for Vista. NVIDIA told me in email that it is a known issue under Vista that eSATA (hot plug) does not work right.

SS

Anyone know what are the plans to get this working on Vista???

Thanks, Dave

I got a similar er... problem, here....

Like Hapkido, I'm using a WD2500KS SATA2 HDD, & an M2N-E MoBo.....the drive is showing up in Vista in the tray as a "safely removable hardware".

Now the thing is it's my only drive on this system..ie, my main / boot drive.... why is it showing as a removable ? It was ok in XP.... most of the time..

Anybody else have this prob, or know a solution ?
My drive is working ok, but it's just annoying having stuff in the tray I don't want

Actually, my problem was that the external USB HDD was NOT functioning as "hot swappable" in Win XP. It is fine in Vista.

However, what you are experiencing with the internal HDD showing up as a "Removable device", does happen for me but in XP. Again, in Vista, everything is working as it should, whether I connect my external enclousre via USB or eSata.

But it is strange goings on, eh? hehe

OK.
Here is solution for hot plugging SATA HDD's on Vista:
First of all, after fresh install of system (Vista) "hot swap/plug" SATA HDD's worked very well on my motherboard Asus M2N-E (nVidia 570 chipset MCP 55P) The problem was NVIDIA's SATA drivers in NFORCE Packet. I never installed them, so i never had problems with HOT PLUG. I also never updated Vista with new SATA drivers which was available in "Windows Update"
But i was forced to do this when i want to install SP1 on Vista. SP1 have newer SATA drivers included. After installing SP1 "Hot plug" stoped working. I turned the external eSATA drive ON and nothing happens. First "bad" solution was to unplug and plug SATA cable, but after doing this 2x Vista freeze and BOSD (file: nvstor.sys take responsibility for the crash).
Week ago i changed my RAID0, and i didn't format HDD's so i have old Vista with working "Hot plug". I booted form old Vista, and rewrite files which supported SCSI, SATA, RAID devices from old to new system with SP1. In was only 3 files: iscsilog.dll (C:\Win\system32\) ; msiscdi.sys (C:\Win\system32\drivers) and nvstor.sys (C:\Win\system32\drivers)
I think that only nvstor.sys is needed to repair "Hot plug"
Newer file "nvstor" had number 5.10.2600.0833
Older have: 5.10.2600.0822
Here u can download all files which i replaced: [attachmentid=6511] or http://www.sendspace.pl/file/vQgn9gFA/

If u want to replace files with new one in your system u must change the ownership of this files. I don't have English version of Vista. Translating this would be difficult , so i found instruction for u: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67717-ta...rship-file.html
I knew method two i did the same thing.

With this nvstor.sys there are no additional icons to "fast removing device's" in taskbar. I turn eSATA external drive or plug in any other SATA HDD's to any of SATA ports, and partitions instanly are pooping up in "My Computer". After unplugging or turn off external storage, partitions are instatly dissapear I never had problems with HDD's plugged it this way. Everything's working without any trouble. That's what bears like the most Fast connecting new HDD's without turning the system OFF.
GOOD LUCK
P.S. Interesting thing is, what did NVIDIA do in newer drivers, which affected hot plugging?