Need some help with a usb 3.0 external drive enclosure

[escanthon]

I have my old 3000gb sata 3 hard drive from my desktop, that I bought an external sata 3 HDD bay to use with my laptop. Trouble is, the laptop reads that there is no drive inserted. When I tried with my only other full size hard drive, a 2tb model, it actually showed up for a few seconds before exhibiting the same behavior. There are no options in the built in drive manager to initialize or format it, and device manager says the driver for it is up to date. Any ideas?

 

[photonboy]

Sounds like a bad enclosure, though I'd try with another computer.

Does the drive show up in Disk Management?

If it was already formatted it should just show up if the enclosure is functional. If it's NOT formatted then you do that from within Disk Management (for W10 right-click Start).

 

[escanthon]

Sounds like a bad enclosure, though I'd try with another computer.

Does the drive show up in Disk Management?

If it was already formatted it should just show up if the enclosure is functional. If it's NOT formatted then you do that from within Disk Management (for W10 right-click Start).

Yeah, it just says "No Media" in disk management. I'll go ahead and try a different pc and let you know.

 

[Paperdoc]

My first thought is a power problem. You bought an external HDD unit with space for 3 HDDs in it, and MAYBE it has a USB3 interface. You do not say whether the port on your laptop is also USB3. But even if both those answers are yes, the can be a power problem.

The USB2 standard can provide up to 0.5 amps from the port to an attached device. That is NOT enough power to run any common HDD. The new USB3 standard raised that to 0.9 amps. Of course, to get that working, the host port, the connecting cable and the enclosure interface all must be USB3. BUT the real clue here is you mounted inside that enclosure one or another desktop HDD units. Virtually ALL 3½" desktop-size HDD's require MORE power than that to run. The units sold as "Portable Hard Drives for USB 3" are all smaller and use slower motors and a few other tricks to minimize their power needs so they can fit within the USB 3 specs. Desktop HDD's do not do that. So, even if you have all USB 3 components, it is VERY unlikely that you can use desktop HDD's in that enclosure.

Well, that is, UNLESS you provide the power required. Many external enclosures come with a separate "power brick" that you plug into the wall and into the enclosure to provide the power required beyond what the USB cable can do. If your enclosure came with one, plug it in and see if that solves your problem. If it did not, look at it and its manual. Can you get an optional power supply module to do the job?

A typical set of symptoms when an external USB enclosure is used with a drive that needs more power that the USB port can provide is that the system looks initially like it is working, but it cannot read anything because the drive unit can't get enough power to spin and move heads. Sounds a lot like your situation.

 

[escanthon]

My first thought is a power problem. You bought an external HDD unit with space for 3 HDDs in it, and MAYBE it has a USB3 interface. You do not say whether the port on your laptop is also USB3. But even if both those answers are yes, the can be a power problem.

The USB2 standard can provide up to 0.5 amps from the port to an attached device. That is NOT enough power to run any common HDD. The new USB3 standard raised that to 0.9 amps. Of course, to get that working, the host port, the connecting cable and the enclosure interface all must be USB3. BUT the real clue here is you mounted inside that enclosure one or another desktop HDD units. Virtually ALL 3½" desktop-size HDD's require MORE power than that to run. The units sold as "Portable Hard Drives for USB 3" are all smaller and use slower motors and a few other tricks to minimize their power needs so they can fit within the USB 3 specs. Desktop HDD's do not do that. So, even if you have all USB 3 components, it is VERY unlikely that you can use desktop HDD's in that enclosure.

Well, that is, UNLESS you provide the power required. Many external enclosures come with a separate "power brick" that you plug into the wall and into the enclosure to provide the power required beyond what the USB cable can do. If your enclosure came with one, plug it in and see if that solves your problem. If it did not, look at it and its manual. Can you get an optional power supply module to do the job?

A typical set of symptoms when an external USB enclosure is used with a drive that needs more power that the USB port can provide is that the system looks initially like it is working, but it cannot read anything because the drive unit can't get enough power to spin and move heads. Sounds a lot like your situation.

No problem, I didn't give quite enough information. The external hard drive bay is a sata 3 6gbps single drive bay, and behaves kind've like a cartridge slot. It has its own AC power cord which is plugged into the wall. The hard drive definitely spins while inserted, and all of my laptop's USB ports are 3.0. I appreciate the response, and I'm sorry for the lack of info on my post.

To add, it behaves exactly the same on a second computer. I'm afraid that photonboy may be right about my enclosure being bad.

 

[escanthon]

Sounds like a bad enclosure, though I'd try with another computer.

Does the drive show up in Disk Management?

If it was already formatted it should just show up if the enclosure is functional. If it's NOT formatted then you do that from within Disk Management (for W10 right-click Start).

It wasn't behaving any differently for my second computer. I think you might be right that I have a bad enclosure

 

[Paperdoc]

I agree. With the power cord connected, the external unit should work even with a USB2 connection (although more slowly). Faulty unit seems very likely.

 

[RetiredChief]

My first thought is a power problem. You bought an external HDD unit with space for 3 HDDs in it, and MAYBE it has a USB3 interface. You do not say whether the port on your laptop is also USB3. But even if both those answers are yes, the can be a power problem.

The USB2 standard can provide up to 0.5 amps from the port to an attached device. That is NOT enough power to run any common HDD. The new USB3 standard raised that to 0.9 amps. Of course, to get that working, the host port, the connecting cable and the enclosure interface all must be USB3. BUT the real clue here is you mounted inside that enclosure one or another desktop HDD units. Virtually ALL 3½" desktop-size HDD's require MORE power than that to run. The units sold as "Portable Hard Drives for USB 3" are all smaller and use slower motors and a few other tricks to minimize their power needs so they can fit within the USB 3 specs. Desktop HDD's do not do that. So, even if you have all USB 3 components, it is VERY unlikely that you can use desktop HDD's in that enclosure.

Well, that is, UNLESS you provide the power required. Many external enclosures come with a separate "power brick" that you plug into the wall and into the enclosure to provide the power required beyond what the USB cable can do. If your enclosure came with one, plug it in and see if that solves your problem. If it did not, look at it and its manual. Can you get an optional power supply module to do the job?

A typical set of symptoms when an external USB enclosure is used with a drive that needs more power that the USB port can provide is that the system looks initially like it is working, but it cannot read anything because the drive unit can't get enough power to spin and move heads. Sounds a lot like your situation.

Paperdoc. While Power (Wattage) is is a factor (You are correct on the diff between USB 2 and USB 3) there is one simple reason that you can Not run a 3 1/2 inch HDD from either USB 2 or 3. USB 2/3 only provide 5V and 3 1/2 " HDDs require both +5V and +12V (2 1/2" drives only require +5V). Hence all 3 1/2 in HDDs require the enclose uses a "Brick" (Which OP said they were using). Simple check is to see if the Encloser is providing Both the +5 and +12 - Alass requires a Voltmeter.

 

[photonboy]

Probably something like a Thermaltake BlacX.

The USB3 versions of these models seem to be very prone to failure. But troubleshooting boils down many times to SWAPPING PARTS:

a) USB cable
b) Power adapter

c) entire unit

*I had a problem before with a Seagate HDD registering but not working and it ended up being a bad USB cable.

 

[seagate_surfer]

agreed with above comments, issues similar to this seem to often be caused by the connection cable from what we've seen, either a bad SATA cable for internal or USB cable for external. A good first place to start with troubleshooting these issues is to try the drive with a different cable, try the drive in a different port, and (if available), try the drive in a different computer to see if the problem is the same.

If those don't seem to solve the issue, then typically moving on to using diagnostic software is the next step, either the manufacturer's (if it's one of ours, this would be SeaTools), or 3rd party software.

 

[escanthon]

agreed with above comments, issues similar to this seem to often be caused by the connection cable from what we've seen, either a bad SATA cable for internal or USB cable for external. A good first place to start with troubleshooting these issues is to try the drive with a different cable, try the drive in a different port, and (if available), try the drive in a different computer to see if the problem is the same.

If those don't seem to solve the issue, then typically moving on to using diagnostic software is the next step, either the manufacturer's (if it's one of ours, this would be SeaTools), or 3rd party software.

It's awesome to even see a response from somebody official! I didn't have any other cables to try though, so I tried with both my wife's and my laptop, a friend's desktop, and my work's computer with no luck. I can't return the external bay anymore, so I've decided to pretend I bought it just to destroy it, and have destroyed it. I appreciate everyone's help, and will go ahead and select your response as the answer.