I've been having issues with an external Esata drive. Instead of being seen as a removeable drive, it is seen as a hard drive. This has caused us nothing but problems since our full disk encryption software automatically starts to encrypt the drive rendering it useless. The real problem I'm having is installing the Hot Fix, KB979344, for this issue. when tring to install, I get the message, "this update is not applicable to your computer" I've looked and this hot fix doesn't seem to be part of SP1, but I could be missing it. Any thoughts? Thanks, Keith

Going out on a limb here since you didn't mention BitLocker for the encryption are you using a 3rd party encryption product? I would contact them and see if they have a configuration setting to be able to exclude such devices.

I am using another product, McAfee's Endpoint Encryption (used to be SafeBoot). They do have a setting for removeable drives (which works for USB devices), but they have the same issue as Bitlocker, the OS sees external esata drive as an internal drive. This hot fix is supposed to resolve that issue which will fix the problem with any encryption software.

This should be part of SP1 already. Are you seeing this problem still in SP1?

Yes, I tested it today right after I attempted to install the hot fix. I immediately saw the issue occur.

Hi Keithk, This hotfix is already contained in Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Please add the registry key to check if the issue persists. (For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. ) Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Storage Create a DWORD Value, name SATAHotplugPolicyOverride, set 1 in Value Data. Restart the computer to check if it works. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

How's going? Please feel free to give us any update. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resovled. At this time, we will mark it as "Answered" as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue persists, please feel free to reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks for your understanding and efforts. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I missed the response on 7/22 with the registry key. I just tried it and am still seeing the same issue. One thought, since this is Windows 7, 64bit, should it be a Dword or a Qword? Thanks, Keith

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Storage Create a DWORD Value, name SATAHotplugPolicyOverride, set 1 in Value Data. Regards, MiyaThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I did make the registry change and still got the same results. That's why I mentioned the fact it is 64bit windows and was wondering if it should be a qword instead of a dword. Keith

Is anyone still looking at this or did I get the "standard" response and now that it doesn't work, any posts get ignored by the moderator?

Hi keithk, I'm sorry for missing your posts, I re-configured my alerts. As for this issue, this KB979344 is contained in SP1, so the update is not applicable to your computer. I suggest you check the setting in BIOS, what's that eSATA drive configured? It should be configured to recognize the drivers as a SATA bustype. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

This is true - if your SATA controller is set to IDE or Legacy mode, hotplugging will be disabled and you'll run into this. -Z

This issue is occurring on the HP Elitebook 8440P laptop. SATA device mode is set to AHCI. The other choices are IDE or RAID and we do not use either of them. Port options for ESATA are either checked (on) or not checked (off).

Hello, Is there a solution to this problem? I have exactly the same situation as keithk. Thanks, Lazar