Hi All
I have a small issue with two hard drives that are connected via docking stations using Esata on my win7 Home Premium 64bit.
During boot the bios sees them and lists them on the boot screen. But if I boot to CD to install any windows OS or to use the image backup to recover windows, then go to the drive section, the drives are not listed only the C: drive which is connected to internal sata.
Both drives are seen if connected via USB but then cannot use them for installing any OS.
How do I get the install program to see Esata connected drives?
Any hints will be appreciated.

Regards Clive

I'd guess at the internal sata is set to emulate ide so it's seen on boot.
The esata drives are set to native sata so would need sata drivers installed to be used at install time.

Thanks Saspro.
Any idea how I would set the sata to IDE emulation on an Asus Striker Extreme mobo with bios version 1901.
Or where to obtain sata drivers and how to install them so they are used during boot before windows has started?

Thanks again for you assistance.
Clive

The drivers will be on the Asus website. You should be able to use Vista drivers as there's no WIndows 7 drivers listed.
Most e-Sata ports don't do ide emulation as ide doesn't support hotswap.

Thanks Saspro
Been to Asus site downloaded sata driver. Got device manager to install drivers. But the download gives a folder with loads of files in it including the *.inf file that device manager uses. Any Idea what I do if anything with all these files?
Unfortunately don't know how copy file list to this post (Snipping Tool won't do it.).

Besides even after this update the restore image option on OS disk still will not see any restore points on a Esata connected drive.

I have no options as far as I can find to allow IDE emulation in the bios.
I think I will have to live with having the drive used for image backups as permanently connected via USB.

But also means I cannot use the Esata drives to install a dual boot OS system.

Thanks again for all your help

Clive

You need to put the folder on a usb thumbdrive (or floppy for XP) then when you try to install an OS on to one of the esata drives you tell it to find the drivers on that usb thumbdrive/floppy

Thanks Saspro
Have done that and it does allow repair CD to now see the Esata drives.

Thanks for all you help.

Clive

Glad I could be of assistance.