Seagate Barracuda 2Tb power connector problem

[Sturmgewehr_44]

Today I did some cleaning up in my case. It didn't go so well though. I was able to reposition all my drives, and get the cables into the back, which tidied things up a little bit, which is good.

However, as I was connecting my drives again, I noticed that a piece was falling off the power connector of my 2TB Seagate Barracuda. This turned out to be the square piece that holds the power cable into it's respective connector. This prevented me from being able to fit the power cable in, and as a result the cable looked like this: http://i.imgur.com/qcwt3os.jpg (notice to the far left that the square-ish plastic section is missing). This is a recertified drive, so it never was in a pristine condition. The PSU power connector fit in well enough, however I don't think it was being held in well, and as a result the harddrive was never detected. Here is a picture of the PSU connector: http://i.imgur.com/edtH5Fz.jpg

It is quite a shame. Some of the pins for the drive weren't completely straight, but I don't think they ever were, so I don't think that could be a cause. I had more than 200Gb stored on it, but nothing really critical.

Is there anything that can be done about this? I know I'll need to get another drive, unless something fantastic happens and I can get it working. Should I order a WD Black 2Tb drive? After this experience, I can't bring myself to trust Seagate again. and I've heard plenty of poor things about them.

Edit: I was able to get the connector like this: http://i.imgur.com/MiqSO0V.jpg , but it still didn't detect the drive. It is still rather crooked. It's not completely straight like the other drives are. To the left, you can see the missing section, that secures the power cable into the drive's connection.

 

[Brighttail]

You have broken the Sata holder, i did this on my WD and had to send it back to get it replaced... Now what you can try to do as a modification.. I put that plastic piece (if it is in one piece) and jammed it into my Sata connect from the power supply. It is a tight fit as it should be but if you get it in there correctly, you should be able to then plug that into the sata port on the back of the HD. This is not a permanent solution but it should allow you to get off any critical files and such.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

You have broken the Sata holder, i did this on my WD and had to send it back to get it replaced... Now what you can try to do as a modification.. I put that plastic piece (if it is in one piece) and jammed it into my Sata connect from the power supply. It is a tight fit as it should be but if you get it in there correctly, you should be able to then plug that into the sata port on the back of the HD. This is not a permanent solution but it should allow you to get off any critical files and such.

How could I have exactly broken it? It must have been in bad shape already though, who knows what it went through for recertitification. The piece that went missing is just a small piece, near the left edge. It looks like a square, I'll see if I can find a picture. Anyway, what could have happened to the rest of the connector, the whole plastic part is gone, leaving the power connection pins completely unprotected. Is it possible my PSU cable took it with it when I pulled it out? I have a picture of that cable above. Can you look at that, and tell me if it could have actually did that?

 

[Brighttail]

They can get weak after a period of time with simple plugging and unplugging or having them plugged in at a slight angle that puts stress on it. Look in the connector itself, that is where I found mine, but yeah the plastic piece looks like ------| type connector and that piece if it is in once piece can be fit into the sata cable with the ----- at the top and the | on the right side with it extending down so you can then plug in the cable. Bottome line is you are most likely going to have to get a new hard drive or if it is underwarranty return it.

Technically if you can use tape or such to somehow hold the cable on, as long as the power connectors keep in constant contact you can power it up and get data off of it.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

They can get weak after a period of time with simple plugging and unplugging or having them plugged in at a slight angle that puts stress on it. Look in the connector itself, that is where I found mine, but yeah the plastic piece looks like ------| type connector and that piece if it is in once piece can be fit into the sata cable with the ----- at the top and the | on the right side with it extending down so you can then plug in the cable. Bottome line is you are most likely going to have to get a new hard drive or if it is underwarranty return it.

Technically if you can use tape or such to somehow hold the cable on, as long as the power connectors keep in constant contact you can power it up and get data off of it.

are you saying that it is possible that I can find the rest of the plastic from the connector INSIDE the power connector? Damn, I thought that was just a dream. If that happened to me, could I still use the same power connector with a new drive? Why is WD Black so much costly than Barracuda? Is 3TB okay, reliable enough? I'm on UEFI so I shouldn't have an issue with compatibility. Do you know any good cloud storage software for the future?

 

[Brighttail]

If the plastic broke off inside of the sata cable connector like mine did, sure. If it did break off you'll have to unplug the cable and take out the plastic that is stuck in there before you could use it on a new drive. The WD Black is more expensive cause it is more robust carries a 5year warranty, barracuda is 2-3 and since you are UEFI 3tb is no issue I really don't do cloud storage, I have an external.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

If the plastic broke off inside of the sata cable connector like mine did, sure. If it did break off you'll have to unplug the cable and take out the plastic that is stuck in there before you could use it on a new drive. The WD Black is more expensive cause it is more robust carries a 5year warranty, barracuda is 2-3 and since you are UEFI 3tb is no issue I really don't do cloud storage, I have an external.

It's hard to tell if the plastic is in there. There is something though. I believe I posted a picture of it in the OP. Does that look like the remains of it? If it is there, how could I remove it, if it makes it unable to be used for a new drive?

 

[Brighttail]

I used a knife point and tweezers with the wire unplugged or the psu power unplugged. I don't see the picture.. where is it? Also do you need it to get info off of the hd first?

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

I used a knife point and tweezers with the wire unplugged or the psu power unplugged. I don't see the picture.. where is it? Also do you need it to get info off of the hd first?

Ok, so my 3TB Black drive arrived today, and I installed it. I ended up putting it in a Asmedia Sata 6gb/s port. Would I notice any difference besides the buffer at Sata3 speeds??

Anyway, when I first booted with the drive, it wouldn't be detected in the Bios, at least, not from what I saw.

In Windows it wasn't showing up in the Computer section. However, it was appearing in the hot swap menu or whatever it's called.

I assume this is because I didn't format it? How do I format a 3TB drive? It was showing up as "Unknown" in the formatting menu and I put it as MBT, because it was recommended. However, the drive is still coloured black in the menu and called "Basic", and is still unrecognised. How do I format properly?

I checked again. It is "Unallocated".

How do I format it as a primary partition, and should I use GPT or MBR?

Edit: I now believe it isn't working because I accidently put it as a MBR drive. How do I fix this? I managed to convert it back to GBT, but the "New Simple Volume" option isn't there...

 

[Brighttail]

First off i would put it in an INTEL slot.. the other will have a small, slower response time since Intel is better. Go in to disk management in WIndows from the control panel or start button. There you can delete all partitions and reformat everything.

Worse comes to worse you can put in your windows dvd, boot into windows setup and go to the screen where you would choose the drive to install windows. From here click once on that drive, go into advanced options and you can delete the partitions, reformat then ESC out of the installation and reboot.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

First off i would put it in an INTEL slot.. the other will have a small, slower response time since Intel is better. Go in to disk management in WIndows from the control panel or start button. There you can delete all partitions and reformat everything.

Worse comes to worse you can put in your windows dvd, boot into windows setup and go to the screen where you would choose the drive to install windows. From here click once on that drive, go into advanced options and you can delete the partitions, reformat then ESC out of the installation and reboot.

I would, but does the drive even utilise full 3Gb/s?

The problem with putting it in an intel port is that my 980 is blocking those ports, and two drives are already in it, including one SSD. It would be a major pain to take it out, and the angled sata cables that are connected to it aren't usable on the 3TB drive so I would have to remove one of them and replace it with another, non-angled sata cable. It wouldn't be feasible without removing GTX 980, which I don't want to do.

That being said, are the Asmedia ports bad?

Oh, and I did manage to format it correctly. I was just being stupid, my bad 🙂

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

A few more things. Like my now broken Seagate drive, the WD 3TB drive is being detected as a DVD drive, presumbly because it is hot-swap ready? Is that a problem or is it normal?

I believe I have the Asmedia controller (it came installed with the Motherboard drivers and such). What makes their ports so much more inferior? I know the on-board Chipset ports are probably better, but are these ones they truly bad?

 

[Brighttail]

It should NOT be marked as hot swappable in your BIOS. You might try resetting BIOS to optimized and start over again jsut to make sure all is good in the BIOS. You can use them, nothing wrong they just aren't as speedy as the intel.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

It should NOT be marked as hot swappable in your BIOS. You might try resetting BIOS to optimized and start over again jsut to make sure all is good in the BIOS. You can use them, nothing wrong they just aren't as speedy as the intel.

Well...it isn't considered hot swappable in the Bios. It isn't even showing up in the Bios.

As it turned out, I actually didn't have the Asmedia Sata controller installed. so that's probably why. I installed it, just need to restart my system.

Are the Asmedia Sata3 ports at least guaranteed faster than Sata2?

The model of the Black 3Tb I got does support Sata3, so that's why I put it in the Asmedia port. I think it only runs the 64MB buffer at 6Gb/s though. Would that make a difference in anything?

I swapped my Bluray drive from one of the asmedia ports to intel Sata2. Would that also be a problem? Do ODDs utilise 6Gb bandwidth?


Anyway, do you know how much slower they are?

 

[Brighttail]

If it works leave it after all this trouble. It was my bad to have assumed you installed the drivers.

HDD should be on sata 3.. the DVD doesn't really matter cause its speed is based on the device not the port.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

If it works leave it after all this trouble. It was my bad to have assumed you installed the drivers.

HDD should be on sata 3.. the DVD doesn't really matter cause its speed is based on the device not the port.

It should be on Sata3?

I thought most HDDs were limited by their parts and couldn't actually use 6Gb/s speeds?

I believe my older 32mb 1Tb black drive only supports Sata2.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

Hmm...after installing the Asmedia controller I noticed that it takes a few seconds more to boot into Windows.

However, after uninstalling it it still took the same amount of time.


My SSD is in the Intel port so I doubt that an Asmedia controller for separate ports could somehow make it slower.


Is it possible that the 3TB HDD is causing it? I do notice that the boot times are different when adding/removing harddrives.

 

[Brighttail]

YOu have to remember that an HDD has to spin up to full speed so it takes a couple seconds to do so and to get the arms for reading data in the right area. SSD is like ram.. instant.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

YOu have to remember that an HDD has to spin up to full speed so it takes a couple seconds to do so and to get the arms for reading data in the right area. SSD is like ram.. instant.

So could that explain the slower boot times? It isn't much slower though, maybe 7-8 seconds at the most. I went from a 11 second boot time to now 20 second, which I guess is still pretty good.

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

Is it possible the Asmedia controller still has something to do with it though? I've heard about people having issues regarding it.

 

[Brighttail]

I'm confused.. what drive are you using to boot off now.. and what intel or other sata are you on... and finally slower that what.. i'm all sorts of confused now.
What motherboard do you hve i'm going to look up the manual too

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

I'm confused.. what drive are you using to boot off now.. and what intel or other sata are you on... and finally slower that what.. i'm all sorts of confused now.

I'm using my Crucial M4 to boot off now, it is an SSD. It is on the Intel Sata3.

However, I put my Bluray drive on Sata2. My 1TB Caviar Black is on Sata3.

My new Caviar Black 3TB is on the asmedia Sata3 controller.

I thought I had the controller already installed, but I didn't. I installed it, and boot times seem slightly slower, but as I said previously, could be because I'm now using a 3TB drive.

I was wondering if the Asmedia controller is somehow affecting my SSD, even though it is in the Intel port.

I have a Sabertooth Z77.

 

[Brighttail]

If you are booting off your SSD, you shouldn't be faster, however when booting up more drivers have to be recognized since you added one more HDD so that could be it. Also if you never had the asmedia on for a hard drive that could also be causing the slower boot. In the end if you want the fastest possible boot, you may be able to change some of that in the BIOS. Asus has some nice software that would only load your SSD, mouse and keyboard up to get into windows and load the others afterwards. You might have had this before and when I had you optimize your settings, that would have reset it.. or you never had it cause i'm not sure the z77 has it.. i know the z87 and z97 have it.

Make sure you choose one of these as a best answer
Either way whenver you add a slower Sata port in and that version is about 3/4 the speed of an intel, you have a little lag. Either way you are up and working and that is a whole lot better than you were!

 

[Sturmgewehr_44]

If you are booting off your SSD, you shouldn't be faster, however when booting up more drivers have to be recognized since you added one more HDD so that could be it. Also if you never had the asmedia on for a hard drive that could also be causing the slower boot. In the end if you want the fastest possible boot, you may be able to change some of that in the BIOS. Asus has some nice software that would only load your SSD, mouse and keyboard up to get into windows and load the others afterwards. You might have had this before and when I had you optimize your settings, that would have reset it.. or you never had it cause i'm not sure the z77 has it.. i know the z87 and z97 have it.

Make sure you choose one of these as a best answer
Either way whenver you add a slower Sata port in and that version is about 3/4 the speed of an intel, you have a little lag. Either way you are up and working and that is a whole lot better than you were!

lol, of course I will give you best answer. I hope you don't think of me as too sly to bother giving someone a best answer.

Anyway, before I cut you loose, do you mind answering a few more of my concerns?

If so, please read on.


What is the name of that Asus software you mentioned?

I don't think the Asmedia controller caused it because I did uninstall it from the control panel as well as delete it's folder, and it didn't make any noticeable difference in the boot times.

That being said, since my 3TB drive is brand new, is it possible that the Bios is just getting used to it, and the boot times will decrease over time? If my memory doesn't fail me, I believe I noticed similar behaviour with my Barracuda 2TB (which was recertified).

One more question: Lets say I uninstall the Asmedia controller. Would that make a difference in the bandwidth?

What I am saying is that I don't believe I've had the Asmedia controller installed ever, or maybe a year ago. Would my drives use 6Gb/s or 3Gb/s without the controller, or do I actually need the downloaded controller to be installed and used to be able to get 6Gb/s out of the Asmedia ports?

 

[Brighttail]

It is the UEFI Bios. Boot times won't get better. You may just get used to it. NO effect on uninstalling it as it is on a different chipset which is why you needed other drivers for it. To use the Asmedia sata ports you need the drivers, just like you loaded the Intel chipset driveers for the intel sata ports.