Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP?

Posted by: tfabris

Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 15/06/2006 21:41

Anyone ever tried hotplugging SATA drives under Windows XP? Obviously only if it's a secondary drive.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 15/06/2006 21:51

If it matters to you, then I'll try it right now.. gimmeasec to plug a SATA card into that box, and then do the inevitable MS driver hunt - install - reboot - whatever.

..
Posted by: mlord

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 15/06/2006 22:12

It seems to work just fine with the specific SATA controller/driver that I have here. I think it does depend very much upon the driver, though. I've seen the source code for this one, and this driver definitely has special handlers and the like for hot insertion/removal of drives.

Cheers
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 15/06/2006 22:49

Hey, thank you very much!

You didn't have to go to all that trouble for me. I was just wondering if anyone else had tried it. If no one had, I was going to try it myself.

Anyway, what this does for me (hopefully) is allows me to use an older SATA drive as a ghetto removable backup drive by dangling a SATA cable out of the case.

I've got an enclosure for a firewire removable backup drive, but it's IDE-only, and I happened to have a large SATA drive that I wanted to use for the purpose. Based on what you've told me, it's worth my time to experiment with doing this. THANKS!
Posted by: andy

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 16/06/2006 06:35

I definitely doesn't work with all controllers/drives/drivers. I have an external drive plugged straight into one of my internal SATA sockets and if I try and hot plug under XP then the machine locks solid.
Posted by: Schido

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 16/06/2006 06:42

In my asus k8v manual it says the onboard sata is not hotplug-able too.
I think i did get it to work once (unreliable) with a seperate program (or was that ide?), but don't remember really, and don't know the program name anymore either.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 16/06/2006 09:54

Quote:
In my asus k8v manual it says the onboard sata is not hotplug-able too.


Again, it's a driver thing. All SATA ports are hot-pluggable, by definition. Otherwise they cannot be called "SATA". I have a K8V here as well.. I suppose I should boot my special "Linux hotplug" kernel on it and see what happens. Later..

Cheers
Posted by: tman

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 17/06/2006 10:03

Big list here of various controllers and whether they're hotpluggable or not.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 17/06/2006 12:20

Quote:
Big list here of various controllers and whether they're hotpluggable or not.


Nothing new there (Jeff's list): all true SATA controllers can do hotplug. Note that Jeff incorrectly lists the PDC Talon as "not capable", when in fact it also *is* capable of it, despite being a PATA chip at the core (not true SATA).

Cheers
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 17/06/2006 15:10

My results: Can't hotplug, must be the crappy ASUS driver. Don't mind rebooting when I plug and unplug the drive, but it would have been nice.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 18/06/2006 17:52

You could also get something like this. I have an older type that doesn't have SATA but does have IDE for 3.5" and 2.5" drives. I've found it works as advertised, and I'm currently using it with an older drive I have lying around. The drive was working fine, but was too loud for my tastes, so it makes a very good temporary backup drive. I have a couple other old drives I'm going to use for backing up various different areas of my machine.

Anyway, it's not exactly what you wanted, and I'm sure it won't perform as well, but it performs the same basic function.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 19/06/2006 01:56

Interesting product. Thanks for the heads-up. Probably won't use it, but glad to know such a thing exists.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Can I hotplug SATA drives under Windows XP? - 19/06/2006 02:32

No problem. For those interested, I have this one. Even cheaper, you can pick up the OEM version for $15.