Dell Studio XPS 9000 eSata drive not recognized - solved! Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

I have now spent 12 hours working on this issue, many hours on the phone and chatting with tech support. They had me install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, change the BIOS from AHMI to RAID, and reinstall Windows 7. It didn't work. I have scoured the net for solutions. It seems that Dell units shipped without functioning eSATA ports has been a problem for at least a year and a half, as far as I can tell.

I tried all your above stops and still no luck. I am getting fed up. .

FYI, my system (XPS 9000) was shipped with Vista, and like you,  I did a fresh clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, everything updated.

I would appreciate any further suggestions. Thanks!

JPB

Hi RSM2000E,

Having the same problem on my XPS 13 running Windows 7 - 64bit.  Dell tech support seems unable to help me over the phone.  Wanted to try this solution as it wasn't something they tried with me. But when I signed in to Dell Support, entered my service tag number and such, I didn't see exactly where a file or link named "Intel Software Utility" was located.  I did see a number of other downloadable drives under "+" dropdown menus labeled "Applications," "Audio," "Bios," etc..  But there is neither anything that I can see entitled "Intel Software Utility" as one of the labeled "+" dropdown menus, nor a file selection labeled as such within any of these menus.  Nor is there anything labeled with "SATA" from which to download anything entitled "JMicron" or "Intel Matrix Storage Manager."  Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, or I'm misunderstanding something?  Any clarification or direct link would be greatly appreciated.  My drive is just staring back at me wondering when it's going to start being worth the 2 hundos I dropped on it.  Thanks in advance!

I have the XPS420 and am using the Windows 7 RC, the Intel driver that you mentioned when attempting to install it goes through the steps and stops and says my operating system is not supported.  The Dell update directed me to both Intel driver and utility.

My ESata HDD is not recognized by the disk management service either.

The BIOS has the RAID setting as the opposite of the recommended setting.  When I placed the RAID to the recommended setting the computer just kept booting and went into a loop.  After regaining control again I placed the RAID back to the original setting, the windows start program indicated some error and prompted me to goto a previous restore spot.  Lucky for me it worked. 

I would like to use the ESata hard drive but how does it get accepted by the computer??  Is there another program or utility that may work. The external HDD is a 1TB but it is not formatted, does it have to be formatted first?

The BIOS has also been updated to the latest, which is A07.

THANX

The BIOS has also been updated to the latest, which is A07.

When you wrote the above, the latest was A13.  As of Jan 20, 2010, the latest is A14.

Tom L

AfterIi put Win7 on my XPS 9000, I just installed the JMicron driver from the Dell driver site and my eSATA worked fine.

Same problem here, A Dell XPS 9000/435t (circa November 2009) with Windows 7 Ultimate that would not recognize an WD15EARS drive in an ineo I-NA314Ue-H external enclosure. Installing the JMicron driver (version 1.17.43.5) from the Dell driver page (listed under "SATA Drives" section) got the drive recognized the first time I installed it, however, it is not consistently recognized, regardless of whether the drive is on when the machine boots or is turned on later.  I am using BIOS A16 and Intel Matrix Storage Manager 9.6.0.1014 (Dell driver page lists this as version 9.6 A01).  Sometimes, if it is not recognized initially, then giving it 10-15 minutes gets it recognized, but not always.  The drive works just fine via its USB2.0 connection.

Dell Support said it was problem with the hard drive's driver, however, that is also at the most recent version.  Any suggestions?

.. and the same here including the system.

I've already installed the latest drivers including the JMicron, latest Bios A16, and Intel Matrix Storage Manager, but still no luck seeing the external drive when Windows 7 Professional boots. I can see the drive listed when I check to make sure it is enabled in the bios (F2 at start up). It is listed last in the list of drives with the internal SATA as Number 3 and the eSATA as the final drive on the list. Still it does not show when I browse 'Computer' or is not found when I try to add a device. I can see it under 'Computer Management,' > 'Disk Drives" as ST31000528AS, and > 'Disk Management' as "Disk 1, Unknown, 931.51 GB, Not Initialized, and the space as unallocated." Tried to update the driver and system indicates that the hard drive is using the most recent driver. Disk Management will not allow me to configure the drive - as any Raid type. It also does not matter if I turn the eSATA on before or after I boot.

If there is no solution to this using the eSATA cable, I guess I will use the USB, but this is not right and Dell should have a solution to this problem. Seems common enough and has been around for over a year, certainly before I purchased my Dell Studio XPS 9000 in January 2010.

Got it to work and it seems it was my error in that I did not take the last step needed do be done. When I accessed Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management and clicked on Disk 1, Unknown, I failed to initialze the drive and go through the formatting. I realized this  today when I connected the external drive using the USB cable and the drive still only showed in Bios set-up and Disk Management, but not in Windows Explorer as a drive.

I turned off the drive, disconnected the USB cable, reconnected the external drive with the eSATA cable, went back into Disk Management:

Update all of the drivers from the Dell web site (if your system is a dell system), in my case for the Desktop Studio XPS 9000, hook up using the eSATA cable (I restarted my computer with the external drive powered on) and go to Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.

1. In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk.
2. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize. You can select whether to use the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style. Notes: GUID partition tables may not be recognized by systems older than Windows 7. The disk should now be initialized as a basic disc and you can assign a logical partition and format (I used NTFS).

Hope it is this simple for others with the same difficulty.

For me and some others It turned out it's a design flaw with the female end on the laptop, and not all cables worked.  Try a Cables To Go Esata cable.