Help with Vista X64 and eSATA

Hi,
I am having issues with my eSATA being recognized in Vista X64 (SP1).

- Vista Ultimate X64 SP1 - Just installed it yesterday and I updated
everything as needed (bios, drivers, Windows updates, etc).
- Abit KN8 Ultra (AMD nForce4 Ultra) - Product specs at 'Universal
abit USA - Home' (http://www.uabit.com) doesn't say anything about
AHCI, but 'Welcome to Universal ABIT Co., Ltd. - Get ready for the
Next Generation' (http://www.abit.com.tw) is more detailed: Supports 4
ports SATA 3Gb/s data transfer rate | Supports SATA AHCI, providing
native command queuing and native hot plug | NV SATA RAID 0/1/0+1
- eSATA enclosure is an Antec MX-1 (I am using the eSATA bracket) w/
the Western Digital 1TB desktop GP (WD10EACS)To be specific Vista cannot recognize the external drive when I power on
the external drive. I found out I can get Vista to recognize it by
running "scan for hardware changes" under Device Manager -> Disk
drives.

- How do I get Vista to auto recognize the external drive without
having to select scan for hardware changes each time or powering up
the computer with the external drive already powered on?Another question I have is related to the safe removal of external
devices. Under Windows XP Pro I could go to the bottom right in the
toolbar and safely remove the external drive; however, Vista does not
show that option even after the drive is recognized. The safely remove
device works fine with my USB stick.

- How do I get the external drive to be recognized as a "hot
swapable" device or some device that can be "safely removed" from the
computer?Some notes:

- I cannot find anything in my bios that says AHCI.
- I am not aware of any SATA drivers that I can install, but I do
have the latest bios from Abit and I also have the latest AMD nForce4
drivers from Nvidia.
- I tweaked Vista Ultimate X64 using the tutorial here at these
forums, but I have not changed anything that would hinder
devices/drive settings.If there are other things that I should include please do let me know
and I will try my best to include it. So far I find Vista to be great
except this external drive annoyance.


--
trikat