IASTOR/Intel RST and "safely removing hardware"

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RedShark

[H]ard|Gawd
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Platform is Windows 7 x64, Sabertooth X79.

I've seen a number of threads on this topic, but no answers. The problem is this:
- The "safely remove hardware" feature works fine with the MSAHCI driver.
- The person installs Intel RST, and then there's no more "safely remove hardware" for the drivers plugged into the controller that the RST driver operates.
- Uninstalling the RST/IASTOR driver and replacing it with the MSAHCI driver resolves the problem.

To be specific here: only "internal" drives are affected. The RST driver evidently still lets you "safely remove" external / e-sata drives. It's only the internal ones that it doesn't. I've not personally verified this but it at least makes some sense.

Losing this feature basically means you can no longer safely hot-swap internal drives when using Intel's RST driver and controller, which makes it a no-go for me. You can work around it by using a different controller if one is available, e.g. Marvell, or use the MSAHCI driver with Intel's controller, which is what I'll be doing apparently.

Has anyone figured out a way to enable "safely removing" internal hard drives with the Intel RST / IASTOR driver?

Edited to clarify: I'm using the MSAHCI driver now, but would prefer to use the Intel driver because of the other features it brings to the table. But I want the hot-swap capability of the MSAHCI driver.

Edited to add: I'm also aware of this tool: http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm. This is kind of a lame hack -- it'd be nice to do it properly.
 
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I'm in the same boat as you. On one of my machines, I am running MSAHCI so I can hotswap. On another machine that I like to use for benchmarking, I am running IASTOR and use the Hotswap! program to hotswap.

I don't know for a fact that IASTOR allows hot-swapping with E-SATA drives, since I have never tried. My motherboard BIOS is set to allow hot-swap for all the SATA ports, but I never tried hot-swapping a drive on the E-SATA port (it is only 3Gbps and most of the drives I want to hot-swap are 6Gbps).
 
I have got Safely Remove Device Eject working on Intel RST iaStor drivers. I am using iaStor.sys 10.6, but this probably applies to most recent versions.

I haven't found this information anywhere else, so I registered to post it here.

I used BSD strings to do a Unicode search on iastor.sys. I found the string SafelyRemove very near the other strings that appear under the
individual Parameters\Port_ strings.

I created a new DWORD:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5\SafelyRemove

and set it to 1.

Rebooted. Done.

I determined my device was on Port5 by examining the drive in Device Manager. Go to the Details Tab.
Look for a Property called "Location information". The number value is the Port number.

I have had this system for about 4 years, and only today did I decide to figure out why I couldn't Eject the eSATA port.

Note: I have found one other post with this information, but since it only mentioned the DWORD in passing, nobody picked up on it:
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=156082.msg1163012#msg1163012
 
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safelyRemove said:
Code: 
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5\SafelyRemove
Click to expand...

Did Port5 already exist on your system? I understand you had to create SafelyRemove, but did you also have to create Port5?

Because my system does not have any ports listed under iaStor\Parameters. All it has is "BusType" REG_DWORD.

I am running RST 11.1.0.1006. Since you were on 10.6.x.y, maybe that trick does not work on later versions.''

By the way, I noticed that using CODE tags prevents that space from being inserted between the r and the t.
 
Port5, etc, already existed on my system, but in the case they don't, I think you can just create the one you need, and then add the SafelyRemove value in it. If the other values don't exist under Port5, the driver probably just does the same as if the Port5 isn't there at all and uses the internal driver defaults.

11.6 (and possibly your 11.1) actually seem to use iaStorA instead of just iastor as the service name in the registry.
 
Worked as a charm! Great find.

In my case I had to create a key called Port2 and create the DWORD SafelyRemove under that key.
 
I've not tried this yet as I'm at home but I'm happy to hear it works. I know the msahci has similar parameters that one can adjust in order to disable the hotswap feature, so it's nice to know that IASTOR has options to ENABLE it.
 
Drives don't seem to spin down when safely ejected; if you have no enclosure or dock to turn off first, then HotSwap program may still be the best thing to use since it can spin down some drives.
 
JoeComp said:
I have both iastor and iaStorA. Maybe iastor is left over from earlier versions of RST.
Click to expand...

I found that adding SafelyRemove under iaStorA\Parameters\Port1 had no effect. But when I added it under iastor\Paremeters\Port1, Windows allowed me to eject the drive on Port 1. So it would appear that even with IAStor 11.x.y.z, iastor is the place to add it.
 
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Anyone else get this to work? I am running RST 12.5 and have tried adding the dword to both iastor and iastora and neither seem to work for me.
 
safelyRemove said:
I have got Safely Remove Device Eject working on Intel RST iaStor drivers. I am using iaStor.sys 10.6, but this probably applies to most recent versions.
Click to expand...

You're a saint! I can confirm this works with iaStor.sys 11.1.0.1006 from 01 Feb 2012 on an "Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller". Got it working today.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology UI shows the correct port number. All that users have to do is create the new key "PortN" where N is the port number as shown in the UI. Then create a new REG-DWORD called "SafelyRemove" with value 1, as safelyRemove described above.

Even after creating the registry entry and rebooting, Intel Rapid Storage Technology UI will still show the port as internal.
Apparently the hot swap functionality, port declaration as either internal or external and the "safely remove" feature are all independent of each other.
Hot Swap is activated through BIOS, port shows as internal as it is wired on my motherboard and "safely remove" is only available via registry hack.

Thanks a bunch!

Tauwasser

P.S.: Sorry for necroposting, but I, too, could not find this information anywhere else and landed on this post after several hours of googling while I mistyped my latest search, so go figure! This trick needs more exposure!
 
For Intel and Nvidia boards, this can be resolved with reg edits.

I have yet to find a solution to this issue on AMD boards.
 
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