XPS 435MT with Windows 7, eSATA Port not Working

Did you check internally the cable connection to the motherboard?

Not yet, but I will in a few minutes.  Will be sick if that's the problem.  Thanks for the suggestion.  Will update once I check it out.

That's not the issue.  I was feeling stupid for not having checked that in the first place, but after cracking the case again I remembered that the eSATA port is soldered on to the motherboard.  Still looking for help...

Thanks.

Tried more driver packs, no luck.  I think the eSATA port was DOA.  What should I do now?

Got mine to work on the first try with Dell Support. I just received my Studio XPS 435MT 4 days ago and the eSATA port was not recognizing.  Here is what I did

Went to the support.dell.com site

Put in my service tag #

selected drivers/downloads

My product info and service tag # were now shown. Select the + next to SATA Drives

I firstdownloaded the first driver Matrix Storage manager but I didn't see it get installed

I then downloaded the next driver Matrix Storage Manager (OS Pre-Insta driver only). This one installed correctly.

Re-boot the computer and there it was. My Aizo drive toaster connected via eSATA.

Hope this works for you

Bob 

My fingers are crossed but I may have solved my eSATA issues.  First, here's the problem I was having.  I purchased a Seagate Xtreme 2 TB hard drive and decided to use the eSATA connection on my Dell 435MT computer.  After initially connecting the harddrive the system immediately recognized the harddrive.  I then used the harddrive to back up some of my files.  After a while I notice that the harddrive would disappear and the only way to remount the drive was to diconnect and reconnect both the power AND eSATA cable.  I spent days talking with technical support for Dell, Seagate and Windows attempting to resolve the issue.  We tried everything, flashing the BIOS, reinstalling the OS and deleting and updating drivers. 

Then, after doing some research I discoveredthe possible issue.  The hardrive came configured for operation for a 32-bit system.  Secondly, the drive had a power saving setting which put the drive to sleep after 15-minutes of inactivity.  With the operating system operating at 64-bits, it was not effectively communicating with the harddrive.

Seagate made a 64-bit patch which should have allowed me to reconfigure the harrdrive setting, but even that wasn't easy.  Easy when the Seagate was recognized by the Dell via the eSATA connection, the Seagate management software couldn't locate the drive.  It was then I discovered a posting which stated that the Seagate software would only work while the drive was via a USB connection. 

I have no recognifigured the harddrive to not enter sleep mode and have not had any issues with the Seagate connected via eSATA for several hours.  If this status changes, I'll post a follow-up. 

In short, 1) check if your eSATA drive will work under a 64-bit system and 2) see if the drive connectivity issues correspond with the drive entering hibernation mode.

Hope this helps.

I purchased my 435MT in Jan 2009 and is running Vista64 instead of Windows 7.

I've never tried the eSata in the back until just now when I finally got an external hard drive with eSata and after connecting, it does not appear to work.  The external hard drive has a USB port also and that works fine.  I do not have another computer with eSata so no way to tell if it's just this hard drive's eSata connector.  I just started using the eSata as I want to do a full disk backup and running in USB mode will take about 5 hours time, my hard drive is full.

So I tried what you've outlined and it doesn't work for me.  The first one Matrix Storage Manager doesn't load and returns that my system isn't the correct one, it did say in the beginning that it's only for the 435T but I tried it anyway.

The 2nd downloaded and installed (seems to be ok but all it did was open a folder when completed, was I supposed to put the files somewhere?).  Rebooted the computer and same effect, it doesn't recognize the drive when using eSata but works when using the USB connector.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.  I've not had the chance to contact Dell support yet but will do so soon.

Have the same problem.   Just tried  using the eSATA port in the back on my Thermatake 2.5/3.5  SATA external  HD reader. 

* Works with USB port , but way slow.   But on the eSATA external port , NOTHING.

Running Win7 64-bit  ... running two  Hard Drives , one of them a  new 3TB Seagate XT 7200 SATA III (comp SATA II) 64mb cache  ... and was trying to transfer my data.

You would think this eSATA external port would be Plug and Play like the internal one.   The internal SATA ports have been easy Plug and Play for me. Even a new 3TB HD.   It just needed a Admin Tools partition. (it was Data only NO OS boot)

* Hope someone will post a FIX for this.

I found the only way to get the eSATA port to work is to connect and power on the SATA device before you power on the Dell computer.

bpratt293,

Is your eSATA port working  in Win7 64-bit ???

Dell 135mt i7 920    

Seems like the Win7 64-bit might be the issue ... Driver?