Problems with an eSata drive...

[Kirano]

So, I recently purchased a Sharkoon SATA Quick Port Pro and a 2TB Samsung Hardrive (HD203WI) for use as an external, back-up hard drive. I was hoping to take advantage of the eSata port on the Antec 1200, to connect the external drive to the computer.

Now, initially, when I plugged everything in and switched on the dock, you could hear the disk spin up but after a while, Windows 7 was still not picking up any new drives attached, at least not in explorer. So, I restarted the computer and went into the Bios (with the external drive still on and attached via the eSata port.) The bios was picking up the drive correctly.

After rebooting the computer, windows told me it was installed the drivers for my new device and, again, correctly identified the drive as the HD203WI. After rebooting again, nothing seemed to have changed. The drive was still not showing up in explorer and there wasn't the usual, er, thing, that pops up in the bottom right hand corner that lists the things you have attached to the computer.

I went into Device Manager and, sure enough, in the Disk Drives category, it was picking up the external drive and reporting no problems. When I went into Disk Management, the first thing that popped up was a window saying...
"You must Initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it..."
In the box entitled "Select Disks" it lists a Disk 2, which is referring to the external hard drive.
It then gives me two options for the "Partition style" of the selected disk
MBR(Master Boot Record)
GPT(GUID Partition Table)

I'm not sure what to do here. I assume that the above is the reason why Windows is detected the drive in everything else but explorer. This assumption may well be wrong however

Can anyone offer some assistance? Let me know what further info you need.

[Funkstar]

Everything you have described is correct and to be expected

This is exactly the same as if you have connected the bare OEM drive internally.

Unlike boxed external drives, bare drives do not come partitioned or formatted, that still needs to be done to yours. The drive doesn't show in Explorer because it only shows actual partitions, not bare drives. As there is no partition, Windows hasn't assigned a drive letter yet either.

Is this drive going to be used on Windows XP systems or older? If it is you will need to set it up as a MBR drive, otherwise i would go for GPT.

If you google "GPT" or "GUID Partition Table" you will get lots of info on that, including a couple of good Wikipedia articles. In short though, it's more modern and the way forward, not so good with backwards compatibility though.

[Kirano]

Thanks for your swift reply!

Is this drive going to be used on Windows XP systems or older?

It's going to be used to back up a hard drive that has Windows 7 and XP on it, in separate partitions. Now, in all likelihood, the backing up will done via a program running in Windows 7 and that program will backup both partitions (I hope) and all the accessing of that backup will be done via Windows 7 but I guess there is a chance that I may use it while in Windows XP. Does this mean MBR would be better?

Also, I may use it to back up data on another hard drive, containing an installation of Ubuntu but I wonder if that will complicate matters further....

[Funkstar]

what are you using to backup the other drive?

Something like Acronis Disk Director will read the drive as it stands and let you image across from your existing drive without setting up anything in Disk Management. In fact, you are probably best going that route as you want to have free unpartitioned space for the backup utility to copy to.

[Kirano]

what are you using to backup the other drive?.

The one with Ubuntu on? Currently, nothing. I've simply been backing up the key files to a memory stick and that is sufficient for now. I just flagged it up as, if my Ubuntu hard drive expands massively (currently, i don't think there is more than 10-15gig on there in total and the key files I'd cry about if I lost only amount to a few gig currently, so are USB'able) then I might need to use the external hard drive to back up the data on that as well...

Something like Acronis Disk Director will read the drive as it stands and let you image across from your existing drive without setting up anything in Disk Management. In fact, you are probably best going that route as you want to have free unpartitioned space for the backup utility to copy to.

It looks like a good package but, according to Acronis' webpage, doesn't support 7?!? Acronis True Image does but is only free on a short 30 day trial. Call me a cheap skate, but I was hoping to use some freeware... I've previously used something called 'Karen's Replicator' (part of 'Karen's Power Tools' set apparently) and didn't have any trouble using that on my old external hard drive (a boxed one, which has since failed, hence the new back up...)

[Funkstar]

OK, it sounded like you were doing an actual backup app to copy the full OS partitions to this new disk.

If you are just copying files, then initialise it as MBR and format it.