T410s eSATA problems

[FragrantHead]

I have a StarTech eSATA HDD adapter, a "toaster" design - you plonk the HDD in vertically - with it's own power supply. It works fine with my T410s under Windows XP where it's plug and play / hot-swappable. What's the story with using it outside XP for either:

(A) Booting from
(B) Running the DOS-based HDDERASE secure erase program
(C) Running a DOS-based disk cloning program, such as Ghost

I have not been able for the BIOS to recognise the eSATA drive, which is currently an Intel X25-M SSD that I wish to secure erase. The T410s BIOS is updated to the latest release: 1.21, which supposedly allows booting from eSATA. The disk is formatted with an active NTFS partition. However:

(1) With SATA mode set to AHCI, the machine will hang for about 1-2 minutes after pressing F1 at boot-time, before entering the BIOS setup screen. The disk cannot be found in the boot options menu, which seems to be the only place that lists attached drives.

(2) With SATA mode set to Compatibility it seems to be completely ignored by the BIOS. There is no bootup / going into BIOS setup delay and it does not appear in the boot listing.

Have you had any success getting an eSATA drive recognised at boot time, by the BIOS setup screen or by a DOS-based program?

[FragrantHead]

So basically eSATA is a bit useless and it's back to getting an Ultrabay cradle...