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Old June 1st 21, 07:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
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Default O.T. Missing Folder/files

Robert in CA wrote:
If by adaptor you mean my surge protector it's pretty hard to
keep them separated but I will try the next plug over but it
doesn't explain how my external Mrimgs hd could connect
and this one doesn't.

I believe Dell Imagining was part of Jasc

I tried the external #4 hd again with the same results then I
used my other spare Startech case and replaced the cable
with a new one and power supply and it still would not connect
as it should like the Mrimg HD did. Could it be that I have a bad
HD in there? Should I should put #3 in the case and see if it
works? That's the only thing I can think of? I've been up all night
so it's going to have to wait till I get some rest.

Robert


Yes, try a working hard drive.

Now, if there were to be a domino fault, then the
second drive could be damaged by being put in that
enclosure.

Testing the (suspect) enclosure drive (somewhere) would be to verify
the drive works.

Testing the wall adapter, would be to determine whether
it is going over-voltage. The adapter is usually 12V @ 2A
and the enclosure has a 12V to 5V regulator of some sort.
The adapter should be current limited. If it gets shorted
while testing, that's not supposed to harm it, as it
shuts off the output.

If it is a barrel connector with two conductors, perhaps
it is a center-positive (+12V) and ground on the
outside.

That is some info, when considering whether drive or power
source are at fault.

Usually the USB controller inside the enclosure, will not
present credentials, until a spinning drive can be read
and proved ready for service. Then the USB chip sets the
voltage levels to signal presence, and discovery happens.
If you sere using USBTreeView and plugged in an unpowered
enclosure, the enclosure should not respond. The thing
is, the USB chip could receive bus power (VBUS) via the cable,
but by not responding, the enclosure "doesn't get your hopes
up". It's only when everything is ship-shape, that the
magic happens, and not before.

If the enclosure is safe to operate without the cover,
sometimes you can "feel" drive vibration, to determine
the spindle of the drive still spins. This also indicated
+12V is good during the test (if it keeps spinning).

I have some older enclosures that are more sloppy. They
will respond a bit without a disk installed. But they
also have capacity limits, so they're pretty well ready
to go to the recycler. One thing different about those,
is the wall adapter uses a 4 pin DIN, with +12V and +5V
offered by the wall adapter, and no regulator inside the
enclosure. This makes it easier to check voltages are
present. "All your failures, in one spot". But this
sort of design, probably cost more to build.

8500 ---X USB port tested good

8500 ------ USB ------- Drive ------ +12V -------- Adapter
^ +5V ^
| |
Bad SATA ports Most likely failure point
do exist based on (my) field data

In a domino failure, multiple pieces of test items get
damaged while carrying out the test procedure. Maybe the
second drive you stick in the enclosure, there is no response
either, and that drive never works again.

The ability to test the power adapter, independently, helps
a bit.

The SATA port on the USB chip, there's not much we can do
about that. I have a SATA port on the machine I'm typing on,
which probably has a common mode voltage problem and it
seems to have ruined the SATA port on my old 2TB drive.
Causing me to have to replace the drive, and "X-off" the
cable that did it. The X-mark on the cable label, tells
me not to use that one. That is a less-common failure, and
for that drive, being permanently in the computer case,
there was no ESD excuse for a failure.

Anyway, if you have some older, non-important SATA drive,
perhaps you could use that for test in this case. If this
were 20 years ago, I'd just tell you to "throw away the
enclosure". But not in the year 2021, as large enclosures
are getting darn hard to find (ones with a fan at least).

You would think it was a bad drive, but I suppose time will
tell, as you test stuff. The last complete drive failure
I had here, is a Maxtor 40GB IDE yonks ago. There are
many sick drives here (five 500GB ones with platter
issues), but they never seem to drop dead.

One of the reasons I own 2-port PCI Express SATA cards, is
for this very scenario. I have a drive. Status unknown.
Like the 2TB with the blown port. Well, we don't want that
2TB blowing any more motherboard ports. So, the 2 port SATA
card goes into the machine, and I do an "internal" drive
test using the SATA card. If the SATA card is blown during
testing, no sweat. It's not damaged my Southbridge, so we're
all friends and the like.

And that's what computer store tech support uses. They use
old kit that they can afford to blow up, to test "customer ****".
In fact, some customers coming in, will be quite blunt about
it, saying "I know you only charge $25 to test a video card,
and there's a good chance this one will blow your motherboard".
And the staff will laugh, because that's exactly the risk. They
need to collect enough $25 fees, to pay for the next motherboard,
and also pay the staff wage. Well, in my case, I use the plugin
PCI Express x1 card with two SATA ports on it, for testing
"suspected bad" hard drives. That's to reduce the financial impact
and try and avoid the more egregious domino faults (sticking a
drive I really needed, into a port that blows it up).

Paul

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