LaCie eSATA HDD Wont Work Unless Via USB

Ex_Brit

Ex_Brit

If you're going through hell, keep going
Vista Guru
Gold Member
I've posted this on ASUS forums where there are several similar complaints ranging over various ASUS motherboards including mine (see my system specs) and have even had LaCie replace the eSATA interface on their d2 Quadra 1TB eHDD but I can't use it as an eSATA drive, only as USB or Firewire 400.
The latest drivers are installed and have been uninstalled and reinstalled until I am blue in the face but it appears that LaCie drives do not like ASUS motherboards and their Marvell 61xx RAID/Storage controllers. BIOS settings are correct. This is a non-RAID setup.

What happens when attempting the eSATA connection is the drive is at first detected but that only lasts seconds before it is undetected. It appears in the BIOS yet at reboot everything slows to a crawl, Windows even lingers on the Startup sound for a minute at least, then a BSOD appears. The drive is then invisible even in the BIOS.

I only have the one eSATA port and have tried several cables and (please note) eSATA worked just fine with my previous Iomega drive using exactly the same setup, cable, drivers etc. (Now use that as a cable-TV DVR extender as this drive wouldn't work in that capacity - a strange coincidence or not?).

I know I can use the drive as a USB drive but would have liked the higher transfer speeds one can enjoy using eSATA.

I'm posting here in the hope that someone else has had the same experience and has some ideas.
 
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My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Win 10 Pro x64 x 2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Alienware ALX x58
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i7-975 Extreme O/C to 4.02 GHz, 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    Asus® P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA1366
    Memory
    24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 4096MB
    Graphics Card(s)
    1792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 Dual Core
    Sound Card
    Onboard Soundmax® High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung XL2370 HD LED backlit 23" W/S 2ms response time
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 x 500gb SATA II
    1 x 1TB SATA II
    1 external eSATA LaCie 3TB
    (Non-RAID)
    PSU
    Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU
    Case
    Unique
    Cooling
    4 case fans @ CPU water cooling.
    Internet Speed
    1gb/s up and down
While I haven't tried the LaCie product or the eSata interface, I can tell you that there are issues with the P6T Deluxe boards and Windows 7 (no significant experience with this board and Vista).

Mine has never been right, and has even been worked on by the Win7 team during beta testing (they blamed the RAID card, the Promise people blamed Win7 beta). I cannot hibernate or sleep, the speeds of my RAID 5 array (with Promise controller) are abysmally slow, I've had some RAID issues, and am just generally frustrated over this board.

Also, I've had issues in the past with Hauppage cards - and your mention of the previous use of the eSata as a cable-TV DVR extender makes me wonder if the TV card or it's drivers are causing issues. Maybe try uninstalling the software and removing the card to test that?

EDIT: Maybe disable the Marvell networking stuff and use a cheap PCI NIC to test with? They're about $15 (US) in most stores that sell those parts.
 

My Computer

System One

Thanks Usasma, yes I'm toying with the idea of getting an auxiliary card as that method usually works when the other fails.

Whether or not I'll get the full advertised transfer speed that way is another matter of course.

I do have 2 spare PCIEx16 slots available.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Win 10 Pro x64 x 2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Alienware ALX x58
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i7-975 Extreme O/C to 4.02 GHz, 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    Asus® P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA1366
    Memory
    24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 4096MB
    Graphics Card(s)
    1792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 Dual Core
    Sound Card
    Onboard Soundmax® High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung XL2370 HD LED backlit 23" W/S 2ms response time
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 x 500gb SATA II
    1 x 1TB SATA II
    1 external eSATA LaCie 3TB
    (Non-RAID)
    PSU
    Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU
    Case
    Unique
    Cooling
    4 case fans @ CPU water cooling.
    Internet Speed
    1gb/s up and down
Bought this card and hope I made the right choice.

While I was there I thought I might as well take advantage of both my spare PCI-E x 16 slots and give myself some USB 3.0 ports too, so I'm somewhat future proofed by using this card.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Win 10 Pro x64 x 2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Alienware ALX x58
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i7-975 Extreme O/C to 4.02 GHz, 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    Asus® P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA1366
    Memory
    24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 4096MB
    Graphics Card(s)
    1792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 Dual Core
    Sound Card
    Onboard Soundmax® High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung XL2370 HD LED backlit 23" W/S 2ms response time
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 x 500gb SATA II
    1 x 1TB SATA II
    1 external eSATA LaCie 3TB
    (Non-RAID)
    PSU
    Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU
    Case
    Unique
    Cooling
    4 case fans @ CPU water cooling.
    Internet Speed
    1gb/s up and down
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