I bought a couple of these .... http://www.komplett.ie/k/k
for installation in two PCs - one about three years old and the about other five years old.
The instructions say that the hot swap function is available if the sata controller supports it.
Both PCs have SATA-1 controllers
How can I determine if hot swapping is safe with my new 1.5 Tb drives ?
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The items under the Green Arrow are not only for USB devices, but rather, any removable devices. For instance, on my home machine (XP SP3), the Green Arrow is always present, and shows both of my internal hard disks, as well as my DVD Burner. All three of these devices are SATA, and are plugged into the motherboard SATA ports.
You need to check the RAID mode settings (sata config) in the BIOS of your computer
Is it set to: IDE, AHCI, or RAID
SATA Mode needs to be (AHCI; Hot Swap)
The SATA controller has three modes of operation:
1/ IDE mode - no AHCI, no RAID
2/ SATA mode (sometimes called AHCI mode) - AHCI enabled, no RAID
3/ RAID mode - AHCI enabled, RAID enabled
So 2/ or 3/ will allow Hot Swaping.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Michael-Best. I checked the BIOS and it was set to IDE mode
I set it to AHCI and when the PC gets to the first XP screen during bootup it restarts, and goes into a continuous rebooting cycle.
I set it back to IDE and it's now back normal.
There are 4 IDE disks and 4 SATA disks and it boots from an IDE drive
Any further suggestions ?
If it can't be done I'll live with it - At least I know not to hot swap!
P.S. What would happen if I swapped one disk for another of the exact same size whilst in hibernation (and no files being accessed)
scifikillr - Your configuration seems unusual to me. The green arrow only shows for USB devices such as flash drives, Cameras, SatNavs etc on all four of my PCs and every other one that I ever worked on. The only exception is the DVD drive on my tablet laptop.
By the way, there are no electronics in the ICYBOX it's just a quick way of disconnecting an internal SATA drive
As Michael-Best indicated, hot swapping with sata is a function of AHCI. That being said, since your original install was setup in ide emulation mode, your installation doesn't have the necessary drivers installed or running to allow Windows to boot. Basically all you need to do is install the driver and modify your registry to tell windows "hey buddy, we're using AHCI, please work with that" (this is sometimes done automatically from the method in which you install the driver). Its actually pretty easy and shouldn't cause many issues...but its dependant on your controller. If you list your motherboard, we'll be able to help you further...or you can just google XP to AHCI, there are hundreds of thousands of hits.
Another option is also motherboard dependant...if you have sata two controllers, you can keep your XP install in ide emulation mode and use the other controller for AHCI (remember, you'll still need to install the drivers).
I've been using this utility for a year.
http://mysite.verizon.net/
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by: scifikillrPosted on 2009-11-03 at 12:51:34ID: 25733457
Well, if you're already using XP or anything newer, you'll know if they're swappable by the tell-tale 'Green arrow' in the system tray that shows up when anything removable is plugged in.
If you set up the new drive(s) and they are formatted and receive drive letters, if they're hot swappable they'll show up as removable devices in this area.