No connectivity with E-SATA MB ports

The MB is a Foxconn N570SM2AA using a nForce 570 chipset. It has 6 SATA headers and a E-SATA on board port and a additional E-SATA MB header;
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/...c....Motherboards/detail_spec.aspx?ID=en-gb0000205

I have a external HDD enclosure (Innovative ME-743J-SV) that has E-SATA and a USB connections;
http://www.anywareus.com/produ...cl...ywareus.com/products/enclosures/me743jsv.html

The USB port works ok. I just bought a new Hitachi 500 GB Deskstar SATA HDD and formatted it via the USB port since the E-SATA port didn't work so I know the drive is ok. I am also assuming the internal interconnect in the enclosure is ok since the USB port worked.
I tried two different SATA cables, one E-SATA and a plain SATA. The HDD doesn't show in Device Manager or Computer Management. It only showed when it had a USB connection.

Question; Is a E-SATA drive suppose to show in the Bios? It doesn't here. There are entries for the six on board SATA channels, but nothing for E-SATA.

 

E-SATA is more of a cable and connector standard than a hard-drive standard. So E-SATA = SATA when it comes to your HD. If you are sure that the SATA channels are enabled and that a SATA hard drive is attached, ( both power cable + data cable ) then Windows may actually see it as a device on re-boot. If Windows, dowsn't detect it, you'll need to download the SATA driver from the MB vendor's site.

 

Here is the correct link for the MB;
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/en-us/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?ID=en-gb0000205

I found it. It's called a "On board JMB 363 controller".
I don't use RAID and I thought it had something to do with a additional IDE channel. I had it disabled.
It's listed as a RAID controller. Typical poor documentation in the manual.

Next question; I was planning to use the E-SATA interface, but with this enabled I get an additional boot screen with this additional controller loading before the boot menu. I have no plans to boot from this drive. Would it be better just to use the USB interface? I'm not a USB fan since I just don't like putting various devices on the same bus even though that was what it was designed for.

Other than the boot feature, any other advantage to having the external drive on a SATA interface over a USB?
Any disavantages to useing USB?

 

SATA is much faster than USB. If you have the capability to use SATA, you should.

 

Understood, but any disadvantages to SATA?

I understood the connectors and cable were different (between SATA & E-SATA). Other than shielding, what at the differences? Surely isn't the connector as I have plugged in a E-SATA cable to a SATA header and it works.

 

Your ESATA port is directly plugged into a SATA port on your motherboard I assume? SATA1 is not plug in play while SATA2 is. That means that if your mobo is SATA1, you will have to plug the external HDD into the port before you start the computer. If it is SATA2, you should not have that problem.

 

Correct on the assumption. According to the corrected link I supplied, it's SATA II, but that wsn't the question.