Icy Box External Enclosure & Docking Station problem

Streeteh

Streeteh

Streeteh

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I received one of these bad boys for christmas with a Samsung F1 1Tb drive. Unfortunately the first one i recieved had a faulty spring for the eject lever so had to return it, this replacement seemed ok at first...

Basically i've fitted it into the caddy, formatted it to fat32 (so i can use it with my PS3 too) and all was well via USB. I then fitted the enclosure and unfortunately it doesn't work in there at all.

The power light comes on, but the harddrive activity light doesn't flash at all, i've checked the connections, switched which sata connector on the motherboard it's attached too and nothing. The motherboard doesn't see it at all and the only hint i can see is when i boot windows in device manager one of the SCSI host controllers has an error:

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

Can't figure out how to get it working, if i slide it out of the caddy and connect it via USB it's perfectly fine.

Motherboard is a A8N-SLi. Any help would be fantastic.
 
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rpstewart said:
Have you loaded the drivers for the SATA controller that the enclosure is connected to?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know, i'm rubbish at these things. I've got 3 other sata harddrives connected that just worked so i assumed this would be the same; didn't think drivers would be needed. I've tried telling windows to update the drivers for the sata port kicking out an error but it just says it can't.

martian_aphid said:
Just a guess but could it be something to do with AHCI? Since its effectively a pnp drive - like an esata interface requires.
Click to expand...

I'm uncertain of whether my motherboard even supports AHCI, i was assured by someone that wasn't going to be a problem as it's 'treated like an internal harddrive when in the caddy'. But looking at how it connects, the esata port is simply converted into a sata cable, is that likely an issue?
 
That's what I would assume. The controller in the caddy is taking an esata connection back to a sata connection which is how an external drive works [at least with esata]. The motherboard will therefore recognise the controller as a pnp drive and as such will require ahci in order to hot swap the hdd and ultimately recognise it. That's my understanding at least.

I have an akasa external enclosure with esata port, and in order for my pc to recognise it via a pass through cable from a mobo sata port to esata at the rear I had to switch sata to ahci in the bios, of couse I also had to reinstall the OS after this which may/may not be an issue for you :S

Best of luck mate
 
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Sadly it doesn't even detect the drive if i have it in when it boots, so i take it enabling AHCI won't help me?

If i want to enable AHCI i assume i have to install the relative drivers upon installation of vista (ie. reinstall vista with the latest nforce drivers on a data stick)?

I've tried it with the drive both turned off and on to no avail. I might try reformatting this evening, i've been meaning to do it for a while anyway.
 
Right, i've reformatted and installed ACHI drivers from the get go. Now, all of my internal drives are listed in the 'safely remove hardware' list except for my icybox.

Would this be enough to go by to say its screwed?
 
Is the Icydock connected to the same controller as the internal drives?

Have you tried it connected to one of the ports you know is working?
 
rpstewart said:
Is the Icydock connected to the same controller as the internal drives?

Have you tried it connected to one of the ports you know is working?
Click to expand...

Yes and Yes

I've also tried switching both the power cable it is connected with and which rail on the PSU it is attached to. I'm completely stumped.
 
Sorry for the bump guys but just thought i'd see if anyone had any more ideas? I've tried everything i think of but wanna make sure there's not something i've missed before i RMA this (for the second time :()
 
Can anyone confirm that they got the plastic "bracket/esata connector" that secures the esata cable to the back of the dock? I think I must have never got this bit in the box.... without it I cannot see how the cable will stay connected to the back of the dock when the icy box is removed? There are two screws in the back of it but nothing to attach to unlike the power lead which is screwed into it.

Hope that makes sense!
 
The dock seems to kill the esata connection on the caddy, I have 3 icy boxes here that can only be used on USB as the esata system has failed completely on them.
 
Ironically I've got something similar where the usb function has failed and esata remains functional.
Definitely sounds like your enclosure is dead. Sorry man
 
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