Two Sata-drives-one as eSata through USB-connector

[europanorama]

On my older MOBOs Asrock alive Dual eSata2 and actually GA-7N400 Pro2(winxp only) i used eSata(actually also USB and Firewire) dockingstation by Orico-6518 series.
There are three options using eSATA also depending MOBO.
Option a)Asrock has eSata-slot whereas GA doesnt have..
Option b) PCI-card _one can boot from the external drive, Asrock has option during start to choose. whereas Gigabyte doesn have. see below

Option c) using Sata to PowerOver 3Sata-card. its connected to internal USB-connector.
this connector. on Asrock it is reserved for internal cardreader(they are speedier than usb-version.
On Gigabyte i have that card on testing.
Since there is no booting-choice the only easy method to decide from which drive it will boot is not switching on external drive during start. Internal drive booting from slot 1.
if i have attached them the "wrong" way Internal one will boot and i can leave external on or not during start.
card has second Sata-eSata-connector.

[europanorama]

I was wrong all the time. Since Mobo-Sata-slots are not signed with SATA 0 AND SATA 1 I had to verify in manual that the inner slot is SATA 0 and not the outer one.
So if both are used always SATA 0-drive will boot.
So best is leaving external drive at SATA 0-slot to have the option to boot.
if i want the internal drive to boot external one should be set to off.

[europanorama]

My Ga-7N400 Pro-Mobo which is a non SSE2 aka SSE-processor-MOBO-has no boot-option to choose during start when one has two hdds attached.
it a universal Sata-IDE MOBO but here we are discussing SATA-SATA-combination only.
MOBO-in contrary to my SSE2-Asrock Alive Dual eSata2-has no external esata-slot to attach external SATA-drive to docking station. But i have found a Sata to Powerover esata card.
no matter where the second SATA-hdd is attached: direct on secondary or over this card if i had set both HDDO and HDD1 in cmos-setup always HDD0-attached-drive will both.
Solution: only set HDD0 OR HDD1 to boot from!
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BTW:
SATA-IDE-combinations ( i have raid-MOBOs)will be discussed seperately in a next thread when i have a quiet minute.
on Win7-SSE-MOBO there will be a booting-problem with quick-slot.
i dont give up the older MOBOs to learn a lot about how they function. maybe this could help in newer PCs.

[europanorama]

No matter if second SATA-drive is connected directly or via sata to power over esata-card and whatever setting is in cmos,drive on HDD-0-slot(here SATA0) will always boot.
So if one wants one drive not booting anymore - the second one must boot-it must be setup in docking-station and power must be set to off.

BTW: i also have a PCI-raid-card which doesnt allow booting. tested on Asrock-MOBO.