Windows 10 won't recognize hard drive internally

[jhsu8888]

I have a 3TB Seagate hard drive that originally came in an enclosure sold as Backup Plus:
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Desktop-External-STCA3000101/dp/B00829THQE

I recently pulled the drive from the enclosure because the rubber coating is turning to goo, but when I try to connect it internally via SATA, Windows 10 won't recognize it.

Here is a screenshot of Disk Management:

I also tried converting the drive to MBR with a partition utility, but for some reason it shows up as MBR already and only gives me the option to convert to GPT:

When I re-connect the drive externally via it's original USB hub that came with the enclosure, the drive shows up fine. Is there a way to access this drive without the original USB connector and without wiping all the data?

 

[jay32267]

Can you assign the partition a letter?

If so, try that.

 

[seagate_surfer]

jhsu8888, always use the right drive for the right job. The intended use you are trying to give it may cause problems and damage the drive.

 

[jhsu8888]

Can you assign the partition a letter? If so, try that.

All options for the drive are grayed out in the Disk Management window.

When I check the volumes properties it does say MBR:

 

[jhsu8888]

jhsu8888, always use the right drive for the right job. The intended use you are trying to give it may cause problems and damage the drive.

That's about as helpful as the fact that the material on your product is literally turning into a sticky goo on the outside. If your company didn't use cheap materials that melt into sludge over time then I wouldn't have to take it out of the enclosure.

What would be more helpful would be explaining how the hard drive is formatted and if there is any possible way to use the drive outside of the enclosure without loosing all the data.

Is there some kind of fingerprint that doesn't allow the drive to be accessed without the USB hub it came with?

 

[jay32267]

After reading Seagate Surfer's comment...I think he may have a point.

 

[jhsu8888]

After reading Seagate Surfer's comment...I think he may have a point.

In what way? He is saying I should "use the right drive for the job", but that has nothing to do with my issue. His link points to a blog post talking about drive durability. The drive is fine, it just has some mechanism/format that only allows me to access it with the original USB hub.

 

[jhsu8888]

Here is a picture of the drive enclosure. It's coated with some kind of rubbery material that is degrading into a sticky goo. I would rather at this point keep the drive as a bare drive that I can use with a hot swappable bay and toss the enclosure.

At this point handling the case leaves a sticky residue on my fingers, I was able to extract the original SATA & power USB connector, and the hard drive is recognized fine when connected through the original hub, but is not recognized when connected internally via SATA.

 

[jay32267]

I'm questioning that....because the drive/enclosure/electronics was originally designed for USB, and it has the USB to "SATA" electronics....perhaps there is something about the drive itself that doesn't allow it to be connected directly to SATA.

I don't know.

Although that seemed where Seagate Surfer was heading.

 

[seagate_surfer]

The drive is designed to work as a single unit along with the enclosure and not out of it. When connecting to the computer Windows is not detecting it thus it asks to format. If you can back up the info somehow else then you can format and test. As this drive is a USB connection Windows sees it as a flash drive an not an internal drive. Basically that is it.

 

[seagate_surfer]

I'm questioning that....because the drive/enclosure/electronics was originally designed for USB, and it has the USB to "SATA" electronics....perhaps there is something about the drive itself that doesn't allow it to be connected directly to SATA.

I don't know.

Although that seemed where Seagate Surfer was heading.

Pretty much. That is why we say not to use the drives in a way that they are not intend to.

 

[jhsu8888]

The drive is designed to work as a single unit along with the enclosure and not out of it. When connecting to the computer Windows is not detecting it thus it asks to format. If you can back up the info somehow else then you can format and test. As this drive is a USB connection Windows sees it as a flash drive an not an internal drive. Basically that is it.

Could you please be more specific, when you say "designed" does that mean there is a physical hardware chip that is made to recognize the Seagate USB connector, or is it a format trick with the GUID Partition Table?

Is it using a Protective MBR (LBA 0) set in the header? Is it a GPT/MBR hybrid?

 

[jhsu8888]

I was able to find a much better answer over on Reddit. From what I understand it is a backwards compatibility issue mixed with whatever weirdness is going on with the USB controller that actually changes attributes such as sector size of the hard drive.

The hard drive is formated MBR with a GPT header which is done for older bios systems. In order to get around the 2TB limitation with the MBR, a GPT header is included on the drive.

Assuming this is the case, hybrid MBR/GPT issues are outlined here:
https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

So essentially the drive is fine to be reformatted and the data replaced, but there is no work around without wiping the drive. The good news is there is no internal hardware fingerprint or anything that will prevent the drive from being used internally after reformatting.

To the "Seagate Rep" lurking this forum, I find it upsetting to think that you are getting paid to give a bunch of non-informative BS to customers who paid money for your company's products. If you don't actually know any of the technical aspects of the product, just don't reply. It's insulting to be pointed to a video outlining the difference between consumer and enterprise level drives as it doesn't relate to my issue at all.

 

[fzabkar]

@jhsu8888, Seagate's USB enclosures are configured with a 4KB sector size. When you remove such a drive from its enclosure and connect it to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard, you expose the drive's 512e sector size, thereby rendering your data inaccesible. Essentially your OS now sees a 4Kn file system on a 512e HDD. This scenario was covered ad infinitum in Seagate's old forum, the entire content of which was flushed away on April Fool's Day, 2014.

You can still see your data using DMDE:

https://dmde.com/

As for the right drive for the job, backblaze.com routinely finds very little difference in reliability (or unreliability) between desktop and enterprise drives.

Here is a thread with a similar problem (and solution):
http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=37563

 

[jhsu8888]

@jhsu8888, Seagate's USB enclosures are configured with a 4KB sector size. When you remove such a drive from its enclosure and connect it to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard, you expose the drive's 512e sector size, thereby rendering your data inaccesible. Essentially your OS now sees a 4Kn file system on a 512e HDD. This scenario was covered ad infinitum in Seagate's old forum, the entire content of which was flushed away on April Fool's Day, 2014.

You can still see your data using DMDE:

https://dmde.com/

As for the right drive for the job, backblaze.com routinely finds very little difference in reliability (or unreliability) between desktop and enterprise drives.

Here is a thread with a similar problem (and solution):
http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=37563

Thanks for the helpful info, that thread was very informative.

They linked to this article:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3028981/storage/seagate-slapped-with-a-class-action-lawsuit-over-hard-drive-failure-rates.html

Yeesh, ST3000DM001 is exactly the drive I have, though I don't use it nearly as much as a cloud storage server might, in fact I probably only access it a few times a year so fingers crossed it will last a while yet.

I already reformatted the drive and cloned everything back over, took a day to do it, but at least I know there's not much else I could do. Next time I come across a good deal on an external drive I'll shuck from the enclosure immediately and reformat.