I have an older 500GB My Book Home edition (WD5000H1CS-00) which supports USB, Firewire and eSATA. I’ve alway used USB until recently when I upgraded and got access to an eSATA port. I now have an Asus P8P67 motherboard.
My problem is that when I connect my drive to the eSATA interface I can see it being detected in the BIOS/UEFI (version 1704) but it’s not getting picked up at all in windows. Running Windows 7 64bit home premium.
I know the drive’s eSATA interface works since I tested it at a friends house. I also tested both SATA 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s ports on my motherboard. I used the stock drivers that came on the motherboard disc.
I saw other people having problems with their drives disappearing in windows after they go into sleep mode, but in my case the drive never appears in the first place. Not even in device manager or under drive management.
So why can I see it in the BIOS but not in Windows?
Anyways I found the problem. Basically the eSATA cable’s connector housing was keeping the connector from making proper contact in the eSATA port on the My Book enclosre. Had to strip away a little bit of the connector housing and it worked perfectly from there. Guess it was just bad luck seeing the drive detected in the bios and then not being detected anymore in Windows.
All these people talking about settings and BIOS and stuff, and the solution was just shaving a few bits of plastic off to get a better connection.
In my case I used a knife to widen the opening on the WD drive itself - the cable doesn’t LOOK like it really goes in much further but it made all the difference - Windows 7 (64 bit) recognised the drive instantly! Thanks Joe for answering your own question; it sure helped me
Awesome find! thank you so much! I’ve literally spent the whole day trying to diagnose the problem and had come to the conclusion the sata port was faulty on my wd lifebook. Just trimmed my cable back and voila! Picked up in windows immediately. such a difference in speed.
