Newish external 2.5" is not spinning up

ajc

ajc

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Andrew
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Any pointers?

I started to use it in in a USB type external enclosure. Kept getting USB hub errors all the time (annoyingly these SATA, as opposed to older PATA 2.5 "drives require 2x USB port worth of power it seems).

Struggled like that for a several months (mostly getting it to work for a varied number of minutes using just 500ma worth - ie 1x USB port connection only) ... and stupidly used it as my MASTER drive for all my RAW photos ... DOH ! :bonk:

Then would not work.

Then would work when tried it in new external enclosure.

Then wouldn't AT ALL.

Then did work in a store's external drive.

Then purchased Cardbus 32bit eSATA card and tried to work - not recognised in My Computer (and now cannot get to spin up in any older external enclosures either ... via USB or new card).

Have my different voltage inputs damaged it? Is it fixable / or rather is some sort of safety protection kicked in ?

(Rather miffed as there are LOADS of GBs worth of files in there that are ORIGINAL and not backed up :shake:)

Any help gratefully received (PS - I have older laptop that natively takes older PATA IDE drives .. so cannot try directly in there). Should I try to find someone with SATA (laptop) and try it in there ? Or what else (before I come to conclusion it is simple 'gone') ??

:thinking:
 
Care to post the brand? There's been a fair number of reports of Western Digital drives "misbehaving" so i'm curious to know if yours is one too...
 
(It's a Hitachi)

PS - I have NEVER had an IDE (PATA) 2.5" drive TOTALLY fail (fingers crossed). One drive was a bit noisy and slow when new ... I got a replacement FOC. Another I thought was dying ... but has never died.

It's something I have done to aggrevate things I am sure. Wondered if anyone else had issue with using an external SATA (as opposed to IDE PATA 2.5" drive) ?

I was SO looking forward to especially using it with my new (Carbus 32bit > eSATA) card and getting potentially much faster input/output data transfer speeds (although not so sure if my Dell Inspiron 8600 will optimise anywhere near theoretical 1.5 GB/s speeds.
 
Hi ajc,
it looks like your original problem was related to the current draw demanded by the drive for start-up. Can you not power the drive externally (rather than via USB)?
I have had problems with external SATA drives 3.5" reading and writing problems which I found was caused by the drivers used by the USB (add-on) card. I upgraded the drivers and the problems were greatly reduced. I then spent loads of time pulling all the files off the external drive via a network to store them on a new internal drive. I now use externals as backup only and not for regular access to files (for editing, say).
 
I have had problems with 2 WD 320GB 2.5" SATA's recently. Neither would spin up in either an external caddy or a Macbook.
 
ajc said:
(annoyingly these SATA, as opposed to older PATA 2.5 "drives require 2x USB port worth of power it seems)..
..............(PS - I have older laptop that natively takes older PATA IDE drives .. so cannot try directly in there). Should I try to find someone with SATA (laptop) and try it in there ? Or what else (before I come to conclusion it is simple 'gone') ??
Click to expand...

Not quite.
Older USB 1.1 machines may not supply enough power therefore the cable supplied allows you to draw current from two ports.
Modern USB 2 machine only require you use 1 port.

Sounds like you have an older laptop PC which isn't playing with modern toys.
Test it on someones new machine. If it powers up and runs fine, consider buying a powered USB hub, it may help.
 
I've got a couple of SATA drives that I use for portable back up. Never had any problem with power from USB-2 ports. The Freecom I have in fact came with a double USB cable to provide extra power from an additional USB port.

I've also taken a SATA drive out of a computer that died and used that in an enclosure just as you did and have had no problems either.

Drives do die, and I'm wondering if in fact this is what has happened to yours. You could try getting an external power supply and see if that helps. However you could simply be throwing good money after bad.

If all else fails you could try a Data recovery service, but this could get expensive.

I've never had a drive die on me but that doesn't mean that it'll never happen. All my images are backed up on 2 hard drives and on DVD.
 
If it is a power problem then it may be worth you picking up one of these, £30 from Maplins, poss cheaper Scan/Ebuyer.
a27jb.jpg

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=226653
 
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