Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nemesis
JohnC wrote:Sounds like HDDs might be going bad. Just replace them with new ones, see if they work fine in both enclosures...
JohnC wrote:Considering that other drives of the same model still work in same enclosures I do not see anything "far fetched" in that.
JohnC wrote:I just looked at the specs for 2.5" WD Black models - they are rated at 1.75W for "average power requirements". Which the USB 2.0 port should be able to supply (unless it's defective). Their "peak" power rating is higher than that but such amount of power is not actually required to operate properly.
frumper15 wrote:Who knows, maybe those drives in particular are requiring just a little more juice at startup for some reason and maybe this will do it for you. I imagine any old jumper will do the trick - old IDE drives would probably make good donors.
just brew it! wrote:JohnC wrote:Considering that other drives of the same model still work in same enclosures I do not see anything "far fetched" in that.
Except that it doesn't explain why the misbehaving drives still work if he doesn't use those enclosures.
just brew it! wrote:JohnC wrote:I just looked at the specs for 2.5" WD Black models - they are rated at 1.75W for "average power requirements". Which the USB 2.0 port should be able to supply (unless it's defective). Their "peak" power rating is higher than that but such amount of power is not actually required to operate properly.
Most mechanical HDDs need several times their rated "average" power during initial startup, while they are bringing the platters up to speed. If the drive can't get enough power to spin up, it never gets to the state where it is supposed to be using only 1.75W.
JohnC wrote:just brew it! wrote:JohnC wrote:Considering that other drives of the same model still work in same enclosures I do not see anything "far fetched" in that.
Except that it doesn't explain why the misbehaving drives still work if he doesn't use those enclosures.
Well, the external dock might be supplying more current (more than needed for non-defective drive).
just brew it! wrote:As I've already noted, my external 2.5"s (all three of them) don't spin up reliably when connected to a single USB 2.0 port; but they do spin up sometimes. The odds of spinning up when connected to a single port seems to vary between the drives, and from PC to PC. If I use a Y cable or power brick they all spin up every time, on every PC. Are you saying that all 3 of my 2.5" external HDDs are defective? Other than the power issue I've outlined, they work perfectly.
just brew it! wrote:OK, I think we've beat this to death. All we can really do now is wait and see whether a Y cable fixes the OP's problem or not.
JohnC wrote:I don't remember seeing such jumper on 2.5" drives... If such mode still exists I think it is being automatically managed by firmware (perhaps some special utilities can allow manual adjustment, but I doubt it).
just brew it! wrote:Yeah, sounds like some pretty junky external enclosures. He mentioned that they are "ASTONE" in the first post.
Arvald wrote:No need to knock a brand just because we don't recognize it in North America.