Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
If you're installing an Antec Easy SATA hard drive docking station instead of or
in addition to the DVD writer, the procedure is the same: attach drive rails to
both sides of the Easy SATA frame, slide the frame into the chassis, as shown in
Figure 8-46, and connect SATA data and power cables.
Figure 8-45. Slide the drive into the chassis and press until it
latches
Figure 8-46. Installing an Antec Easy SATA hard drive docking
station
The Easy SATA docking station also provides an eSATA connector, visible in
Figure 8-46 just to the left of Barbara's right thumb. If your motherboard has a
spare SATA port and you want to make this eSATA port live, connect the cap-
tive cable inside the Easy SATA unit to that free SATA port. Note that this con-
nector provides only SATA data, not power, so any external drive you connect
to it must be powered separately.
Configuring and Using the Antec Easy SATA
To enable hot-swapping, the Antec Easy SATA docking station
requires Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) support.
Before you install the operating system, enter BIOS Setup and
locate the SATA configuration screen. If SATA is already set
to use AHCI, you need make no changes. If SATA is set to IDE,
change the setting to AHCI, save your settings, exit BIOS Setup,
and restart the system.
drive protrudes from the Easy SATA bay, which allows you to
grip the drive to remove it.)
As soon as the drive connectors make contact, the drive should
spin up. After a few seconds, as it reaches operating speed, a
drive icon will appear automatically under Windows or Linux.
(The drive icon may not appear automatically under Windows
7; if it doesn't, refresh [F5] your drives list and it should appear.)
At that point, you can read from and write to the drive just as
you would any internal hard drive.
If Windows Vista or Windows 7 is already installed, chang-
ing the SATA setting from IDE to AHCI will render the system
unbootable, so exit BIOS Setup without making any changes.
Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 and follow the
instructions there to enable AHCI on your system. If you have
a recent Linux version installed, use your package manager to
verify that the AHCI driver is installed, use BIOS Setup to enable
AHCI, save the settings, and restart the system.
To remove the drive, ensure that it is not in use and that all
cached data has been flushed to the drive. (Right-click on the
drive icon and choose “Remove Drive Safely,” “Unmount,” or a
similarly worded option.) Press the button on the front of the Easy
SATA bay to unlock the drive and then pull the drive far enough
out of the bay to break the power connection. Allow several sec-
onds for the drive to spin down and the heads to lock, and then
pull the drive completely out of the bay. (If you simply pull the
drive straight out of the bay without allowing it to spin down, the
spinning platters act as a gyroscopic stabilizer, which is discon-
certing. The first time we did that, we nearly dropped the drive.)
To install a hard drive in the Antec Easy SATA hard drive docking
station, press the button on the left front of the docking station
to release the latch, and slide the drive—with the circuit board
side down and the SATA connectors facing the case—into the
bay until you feel it seat. (When fully seated, the front of the
 
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