eSata Hotswap?

[enspirent]

Can anybody help me out on this? I got an external hard drive with eSata. I have set the sata controller to AHCI, and installed Intel Matrix Storage driver. Problem is during boot up in the Intel AHCI detection phase, it detects I have 4 devices (I have 2 internal hard drives, 1 external, 1 DVD burner), but it only shows 3 ports being used (my external hard drive is missing), with the other 3 ports unused. So does this mean it detects 4 devices but 1 device (my external hard drive, and yes its powered on) is not using a port?!?!?

My Gigabyte UD3P motherboard also has purple jMicron sata controllers. If I set those to AHCI and plug my eSata external hard drive there, I can it in AFTER Vista has booted and it is detected and works fine. However, the problem is, once I unplug the external hard drive and replug it, it becomes totally undetected (I tried rescanning in Device Manager, no luck).

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[lowfat]

So when on the ICH10R you don't see the drive while in windows? Have you tried moving the esata cable to a different port on the motherboard (but still on the ICH10R).

[enspirent]

Yes, I tried switching ports, but still not detected in Vista, nor in Intel Matrix Manager. In fact, sometimes Vista gets stuck on the loading screen win AHCI mode. It works sometimes and not sometimes. Very odd.

[lowfat]

I would think there has to be something with either the drive or the external drive case/controller. I have no idea how it would be anything else.