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My message to anyone attempting to install any variety of Windows on an eSATA drive on a Mac: Don’t even try.

I bought a Syba (1 Port) eSATA ExpressCard 34. It has the JMicron chipset. The hardware itself had no technical problems. I duplicated my OS X backup on my eSATA drive and successfully booted from it. I then cleared and formatted the drive as NTFS, and used Winclone to duplicate my internal Windows XP partition onto the drive. The BootCamp loader recognized the external drive and indicated that there were two Windows partitions I could boot from. However, no matter which drive I chose, the internal Windows XP partition would always boot.

1) Problem 1: software limitations. Both Windows XP and the Windows 7 RC installer recognized the eSATA drive as a “Local Drive”, but not one that was bootable. I believe I installed the JMicron drivers correctly, but may have made an error in this regard.
2) Problem 2: Firmware limitations. Intel Mac hardware uses a BIOS replacement called EFI for booting. It emulates BIOS to allow legacy operating systems such as Windows XP to boot. It seems when I boot any Windows partition, the BIOS emulation kicks in, and since Windows only sees one bootable hard drive, always picks the internal one. That is my impression anyway.

At this point I gave up. Further attempts to tweak the boot sequence would require me to modify my EFI firmware with 3rd party software such as rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/).

Scenarios I did not try:
Erasing the internal XP drive, then attempting to boot the eSATA Windows XP drive.
Actually installing Windows 7, which may have support for EFI and behave differently.

If anyone is willing to attempt these scenarios, I wish you the best of luck.

I would go with the JMicron chipset, since it is not possible to boot a Mac from an external drive using an eSata card with the Silicon Image Chipset. This is according to what I read when researching the subject. Now, for WIndows 7 to be able to use the Express Card, you might need to install drivers. I don’t know if WIndows 7 will include the drivers for the JMicron Chipset.

I read that some people had success with the PPA Int’l eSata Express Card, but I did not, and I did not get much support from PPA Int’l. If I connect the drive while the computer is booted, it will be recognized. However, if it is already connected at boot-time, my MBP (Early 2008) won’t mount the drive. Also, my MBP sometimes froze when I was using the PPA Int’l card, so I am not using it anymore. Since other people did not have as much trouble with the card, I suppose it might be due to a combination of things like card revision and MBP Firmware revision. The problem is not coming from the external drive, casing or cable however, since I tried other drives with different cables, and I had the same problems.

Cheers!

JF

Should I get an eSATA ExpressCard with the JMicron or Silicon Image chipset for this purpose?

(Now hoping I won’t experience any of the freezing issues…)

Actually, I tried various combinations (different eSata cables, external drives, and MBP’s), and I am now wondering if my MBP has a harware problem. I tried a La Cie drive and it did not work either. However, it was also multi-port drive. Then I tried my eSata card and my external drive on a friend’s MBP which may be about 1 year older than mine and it worked fine. This lets me believe that it might be a firmware or a hardware problem. But thanks for your input. If I have the chance, I will try with an eSata-only enclosure.

Cheers!

JF

O/T: Anyone find it strange that the PCI-SIG has no record of that vendor ID? I thought they were the ones responsible for handing those out?