jnelsoninjax Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 I had a Samsung external HDD that was randomly disconnecting from Windows, I bought a new cable and tried to diagnose it, but it turned out that the connector was slightly bent, once I gently fixed it, it stopped getting power. So I took it apart today and pulled the drive and placed it onto an external dock, only to be told by windows that the drive needs to be formatted. Now it is not a huge loss to lose the data on the drive as it is all secondary backups, but I am curious as to why it was working yesterday before changing the cable out, and suddenly today it is no longer formatted... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xendrome Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 That's just the way electronics work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekrosoft13 Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 1 hour ago, jnelsoninjax said: I had a Samsung external HDD that was randomly disconnecting from Windows, I bought a new cable and tried to diagnose it, but it turned out that the connector was slightly bent, once I gently fixed it, it stopped getting power. So I took it apart today and pulled the drive and placed it onto an external dock, only to be told by windows that the drive needs to be formatted. Now it is not a huge loss to lose the data on the drive as it is all secondary backups, but I am curious as to why it was working yesterday before changing the cable out, and suddenly today it is no longer formatted... external drives often are formatted "differently" the USB to SATA control board understands the format. while when you plug it in directly windows doesn't recognize the format. Max 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 8, 2020 MVC Share Posted January 8, 2020 Have you tried running a chkdsk on the drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Circaflex Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 2 hours ago, nekrosoft13 said: external drives often are formatted "differently" the USB to SATA control board understands the format. while when you plug it in directly windows doesn't recognize the format. Strange, I really never came across something like that, except for some of those dual WD Mybooks, or the random WD drives that had proprietary SATA connectors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnelsoninjax Posted January 8, 2020 Author Share Posted January 8, 2020 10 hours ago, warwagon said: Have you tried running a chkdsk on the drive? It says it is file system RAW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 8, 2020 MVC Share Posted January 8, 2020 1 hour ago, jnelsoninjax said: It says it is file system RAW I read somewhere that some companies make it so you can't buy externals on the cheap, remove them from their enclosures and put them in your pc. Now this may have been actually preventing them to power on. I'm not sure. I know that they had to cover some pins on the power connector to get it to work but that might have also been just for it to turn on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnelsoninjax Posted January 8, 2020 Author Share Posted January 8, 2020 1 hour ago, warwagon said: I read somewhere that some companies make it so you can't buy externals on the cheap, remove them from their enclosures and put them in your pc. Now this may have been actually preventing them to power on. I'm not sure. I know that they had to cover some pins on the power connector to get it to work but that might have also been just for it to turn on. Well, I'm just going to format it, and see if it is usable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted January 8, 2020 Moderator Share Posted January 8, 2020 (edited) I had this happen to MyBook, too. Sadly, one controller broke, but as I had 2, and I could switch the controller card and could back everything up. After that, I just formatted it with GParted, but it had some freaky customization. You had to recreate the partition and something else (was years ago) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekrosoft13 Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 22 hours ago, Circaflex said: Strange, I really never came across something like that, except for some of those dual WD Mybooks, or the random WD drives that had proprietary SATA connectors. i see it quite often, i shuck a lot of drives. Its cheaper to buy large external drives then internal. some usb to sata boards encrypt the drives, some back in the day emulated advance formating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum staff Moderator Posted January 8, 2021 Moderator Share Posted January 8, 2021 This topic was automatically locked because it did not receive any replies for a year. If you want to have this topic reopened please contact any staff moderator or report the first post of the topic with the reason why it should be reopened. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now