Two SATA HDDs connected using a Black Duet HDD Docking Station via eSATA to my Laptop, second drive not appearing?

Question

Hi I am using a BlacX Duet HDD Docking Station to connect a 1TB WD Caviar Black SATA HDD (WD10000LSRTL) and a HITACHI SATA DESKSTAR (0S00163) to my G51VX (BestBuy) laptop via the eSATA port.

When I plug in both HDDs in to the Docking Station, connect the docking station to my laptop and start Windows 7 (64-bit Ultimate), only the HDD in the first drive in the port actually shows up in My Computer and Disk Management.

If I swap the drives positions I can get them both to work, but never at the same time.

I also checked in the bios settings on the laptop, under Advanced->IDE Configuration->SATA Operation Mode, and it displays:

SATA Operation Mode: [Enhanced]

AHCI Port0 [Hard Disk]
Device: Hard Disk
Vendor: ST9320421AS
LBA Mode: Supported
S.M.A.R.T.: Supported

AHCI Port5 [Hard Disk]
Device: Hard Disk
Vendor: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332
Size: 100.00 GB
LBA Mode: Supported
S.M.A.R.T.: Supported

There should be a third drive, but I'm not certain why it is not being picked up. Additionally, before I played around with the settings in the IDE configuration, it used to display the DVD as well.

Answer 1

Okay figured it out.

My laptop uses a ICH9M-E/M Chipset and this does not have a "port multiplier". The BlacX Duet HDD Docking Station only supports using both drives when the motherboard/chipset in question contains a "Port Multiplier"

But it's not a total loss. I can still use both drives using USB at slower speeds, and I can also disconnect them in Windows and reconnect them using the eSATA connection by disconnecting the hardware.