Akasa duo dock & esata??

Lord Alibaski

Lord Alibaski

Lord Alibaski

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Ok I posted a request about this issue in the technical queries section on this forum back on the 24th Nov last year. I have left 3 separate messages regarding this issue 24/26th November & last on the 24th of December and not had 1 single reply to any so I will ask in here.

I purchased the Akasa duo dock 2

The system I am using it on at the moment is an old Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 which uses these esata brackets

These

2utsv12.jpg


1st of all it took a re-format of windows to get 1 drive to be noticed, but even then it took 5mins to even appear in windows. I then tried just leaving it turned on then rebooting which seemed to work the drive was noticed straight away but soon as you turned the Akasa off and turned it back on again the pc needed another reboot before the drive could be noticed again.

I have 1 bracket in at the moment the brackets themselves consist of 2 sata cables which are plugged into the purple sata slots on the motherboard and also plugged into a molex.

Yes I am happy with the duo dock working but it’s not working to its full potential! it will work with 1 drive in but still has troubles seeing the drive when you turn the unit off and back on again.

Though the main problem now is that whenever you put 2 drives into the duo dock only 1 drive will be recognized no matter what you try 2 drives will not work together only 1 will be seen inside windows, even in the BIOS it only recognizes 1 drive.

I am personally not happy at the moment because overclockers have seemed to have ignored my request for help. I haven’t had the time over Christmas to phone but I am back home in 2 weeks and will then be on the phone to support about this issue I don’t know if it’s a issue with these silly esata brackets on the gigabyte board or if there is a problem with the duo dock itself.

Thanks for any help.
 
If you dont get any help, I will be able to help soon as I have a dual docking thingy on its way to me (2 sata drives to go in it) and will be using it over esata to my mobo connectors and will at least be able to tell you how windows recognizes drives etc.

How many sata cables go into the unit, 1 or two?
 
how long are the leads on the dual sata to esata?
i had one and one would be problematic, the lead was in but i had to wiggle it before the sata drive got noticed.
in the end i had to get 2 single converters with longer leads.

another problem which i think is down to the drive, let the drive spin up then disconnect/reconnect it before windows sees it.

also make sure you have the sata ports set to AHCI.

EDIT: another thought.
are any of the sata connectors jmicron? if you have and you're using them the windows drivers might not work right, you need to download the drivers direct from jmicron.
 
Last edited:
Ch3m1c4L said:
How many sata cables go into the unit, 1 or two?
Click to expand...


There is only 1 esata cable going from this unit and 1 usb connection.


deadite66 said:
how long are the leads on the dual sata to esata?
Click to expand...

The cable is esata to esata and it's about metre length


deadite66 said:
i had one and one would be problematic, the lead was in but i had to wiggle it before the sata drive got noticed.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't have to wiggle something thats new m8.

deadite66 said:
also make sure you have the sata ports set to AHCI.
Click to expand...


Windows will not boot up if I set it to AHCI mode.

deadite66 said:
EDIT: another thought.
are any of the sata connectors jmicron? if you have and you're using them the windows drivers might not work right, you need to download the drivers direct from jmicron.
Click to expand...


The duo dock is being detected so its not a driver problem.

If you read what I put m8 when I put 2 drives into the duo dock only 1 drive is detected via esata both drives are detected via the usb connection. When you power down the duo dock and power it back up the drive wont be dectedted again it needs a full reboot of the pc for it to be detected. When the duo dock is powered up it also takes about 4/5mins for the drive to be detected via the esata connection.
 
The Jmicron drivers could still be dodgy, my onboard jmicron controller (fr esata) crashed my pc all the time before I got them.

If AHCI mode crashes your PC, turn it on first in windows
Download this tool from microsoft and run it and itll do it for you
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Then enable in bios and itll still work properly, now with AHCI mode turned on :)

When using my old portable drive if i just plugged it in while the pc was on, it would tend not to be detected, I think its a failing of esata/windows, at least without ahci turned on. I cant rem if its just certain boards that dont support hot swap properly or if its only boards with AHCI that do.

Shouldnt take 4-5 mins though, should be detected by the bios at boot up and then windows as soon as you log in etc.

Does it have any RAID functionality on it, and if so, is the switch set to any kind of raid? that would explain why windows only saw one drive maybe?

I can't wait till I get mine, just so I can test it and either see that it works fine and as such yours is dodgy, or it ahs the same issues so I can help you figure it out a lot better.
 
From the manual:

eSATA connection
Connect one end of the provided eSATA cable to the Duo Dock 2 and
the other end to the computer's eSATA port. NOTE: Do not use eSATA
and USB connections at the same time. Some eSATA motherboards /
controllers may not support using two drives simultaneously.
 
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