x0pht

Problem SOLVED! Firstly, I admit that the confusion I had earlier is caused by my insufficient knowledge of hard disk standby via I/O request. By going through repeated tests (and painful reboots of course), I discovered all I needed to do was to disconnect the SATA power cable and then reconnect it. What I did earlier was to simply "safely-remove" the hard disk then re-scan the hardware changes in order to test the hotswap functionality. Leaving the SATA cable connected somehow doesn't "end" the standby request sent by the hotswap program, which actually now makes sense that the hard disk didn't really turn off, it just stood by. though I restarted the system, I never actually turned the whole computer off during the testing. but please correct me if I'm wrong, honestly I haven't dug up any related info or docs yet to back it up. these are only my own understanding and assumption. Another statement was confirmed during the process of testing, which is that hotswapping a hard disk on the same power cables as the system drive will indeed cause the system behave abnormally (e.g. restart in my case) due to insufficient power, just like someone else mentioned before in other threads. Thanks for reading my posts.

Hi all, Thanks alot to the OP and all the contributors in this thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/enable-ahci-inte...xp-t109450.html There are several guides regarding enabling AHCI on non-R chipsets, but this guide you guys have here is the most comprehensive and accurate one in terms of dealing with DS3L MB. I thought I might get a better chance of getting actual help here since the thread mentioned above has been alive for two years, which means the OP's are still active. Instead of hijacking other's thread, I decided to create my own, as my problem is actually related to HotSwap Software - http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm So, everything else has been perfectly fine except that after I use HotSwap to "safely remove" one of the SATA HDD's, this particular HDD will be permanently in the status of "auto-standby". I double-checked both BIOS and OS settings, they are all set to "never turn off hard disks" as what they used to be. Actually I'm pretty positive it's not caused by OS level settings because I can hear the HDD's spinning up and down during the boot-up. As stated on HotSwap official website, the program just sends an ATA standby command to the HDD to spin it down. Isn't that supposed to be a "one-time deal"? Any input is much appreciated!