hot plugging eSATA

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>
| 
| On Sat, Apr 03, 2010 at 12:14:33PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:

| > I tried hotp lugging eSATA on my machine (HP Pavilion a6245n desktop
| > with Intel G33 and ICH9R chipset).  It didn't seem to work.
| > 
| > I went to the BIOS and found
| > 	Advanced: SATA1 controller mode [IDE]
| > 	SATA2 Controller [Enabled]
| > I switched to
| > 	Advanced: SATA1 controller mode [AHCI]
| > and the SATA2 line disappeard?!?
| > 
| > I rebooted and hot plugging worked.  At least kind of.

| > - the default setting may be IDE or ATA preventing hot plug
| 
| > - the reason might be that some versions of Windows don't come whith
| >   AHCI drivers.
| 
| Like XP.
| 
| And intel has been an ass in that they only provide AHCI drivers for
| their older chipsets (like yours) if it is the R version (so ICH9R has
| AHCI drivers, ICH9 does not).

My machine came with Vista.  I booted into Vista last night.  During
the boot process, it rebooted (back to POST screen and then grub).  On
the second boot, it claimed that I should go into a recovery mode.  It
offered to restore my whole system (probably losing my Linux
partitions), so I declined.  It suggested that I might have installed
a new device and that I should undo this.

Then I remembered that I'd changed this BIOS setting nearly three
weeks ago, so I reversed it and was able to boot Vista.

- what a horrible symptom

- why would Vista not support AHCI.  Especially since the Vista was
  provided (forced on me) by the hardware vendor (HP).

A solution was provided in Microsoft Knowledge Base 922976.  Almost.
I used Vista's regedit to change two keys.  (The KB suggests either
would do; just doing one didn't work but two did.)  So the driver is
capable, just not willing to try without a wacky nudge.
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