SATA to USB adapter not detecting hard drive

[vanrose72]

I have a SATA hard drive that crapped out on me recently. I replaced the drive and also got a SATA to USB adapter so I can try (with fingers crossed) to retrieve what data I can.

The old drive isn't being detected via USB, even after 24 hours chilling in the deep freeze.

The initial issue with the drive was that it wasn't detected at startup, so I guess it's just continuing its previous behavior.

I'm wondering if there's a trick to getting it detected or if I'm just wasting my time on a completely busted hard drive.

Anyone have any ideas?

[404]

does the drive spin up at all? any ticking noises? chances are the controller board is fried. your only chance would be to get a controller board from another, exact model drive and swap them out temporarily.

[vanrose72]

does the drive spin up at all? any ticking noises? chances are the controller board is fried. your only chance would be to get a controller board from another, exact model drive and swap them out temporarily.

Yep, the platters are definitely spinning. Maybe a new controller board is the ticket.

[404]

does the drive spin up at all? any ticking noises? chances are the controller board is fried. your only chance would be to get a controller board from another, exact model drive and swap them out temporarily.

Yep, the platters are definitely spinning. Maybe a new controller board is the ticket.

what model is the drive?

[vanrose72]

what model is the drive?

It is a Seagate 7200.11. The physical operation of the drive sounds completely normal, like the initial click when it starts spinning as well as the vibrations as it continues.

[Malenko]

have you tried a different USB port? my SATA to USB is finicky, thats why I ask.

[vanrose72]

have you tried a different USB port? my SATA to USB is finicky, thats why I ask.

I've tried multiple USB ports in both the front and back of my machine, but none of them will detect the drive.

I'm still thinking the controller board is the culprit. Besides that, I could only imagine a shoddy USB adapter as the source of my issue.

[ed12]

hi
i use a proggie called easeus partition recovery 5.0.1
it's freeware
with it u can tell if u can repair the drive or not
in winblow's if the mbr is not there winblow's will not asign it
with this proggie u can c it even if the mbr is bad
if the controller board is bad
u could poke around to find a drive that u can salvage the control board off
of

ed

[vanrose72]

hi
i use a proggie called easeus partition recovery 5.0.1
it's freeware
with it u can tell if u can repair the drive or not
in winblow's if the mbr is not there winblow's will not asign it
with this proggie u can c it even if the mbr is bad
if the controller board is bad
u could poke around to find a drive that u can salvage the control board off
of

ed

Thanks for the info, ed. I will most definitely check that out as soon as possible. Sounds great for troubleshooting stuff like this!

[vanrose72]

I finally got to the bottom of my issue. My problem was the result of buggy firmware on the hard drive.

I contacted Seagate after researching an existing firmware issue prevalent among other hard drives like mine. The company agreed to flash the firmware free of charge, which completely resolved the issue at no cost to me.