Hi, Some PCB started failing in my external Seagate HDD. It looks like a USB socket soldered to PCB is a very weak point. So I removed the drive from its housing and connected through SATA-USB adapter to my laptop. Now I cannot see my files in it. The system sees it as an unformatted drive. I have read somewhere that Seagate uses special partition table or file system.
How can I reproduce Seagate settings and start using the drive without recovering and reformatting it? How to unreveal original Seagate partitions' settings, file system and allocation unit size etc?
Thanks

 

PS. I have repaired broken PCB tracks of the USB socket. And it works well now. But it will break again soon. Then I will need to use the drive without Seagate housing and its PCB where Seagate keeps its system.

 

This is why you buy a internal HD then use a generic case.

 

I have not had a problem pulling 3.5" drives from external units to use internally, but i do not ever use any of the manufacturer's encryption or utilities. It used to be that external prices were better for some popular units.

 

What is the model number? What are you using it for?

 

Use Minitool Partition to check if still there is data and also if hdd is MBR or GPT. Then you can try to recover with proper tools or change to MBR if GPT (sometimes GPT gives problems).

 

I just want to say that I love Minitool Partition Wizard

 

It is used for storage only. It is NTFS and MBR. I tried the recovery program whether it sees files in it and yes I can recover files. But I don’t want to waste time for recovering if the files are there. I have another external Seagate drive 3TB. When the story will repeat I will be pissed off. I will try Minitool and I will do another safety copy to internal drive. Bloody Seagate... There should be a converter or translator for Seagate system. Thanks

 

Oh that is the model of the power supply. I wondered if you had the model of the [HDD] and the [Enclosure + HDD].
MBR? I don't think you need to have any MBR on it. All my externals I have as one partition of data.
There are empty reserved partitions of 128 MB on a couple of my internal storage drives, but that is just because I did not bother extending the primary partition on those. I noticed on the external ones so I deleted and extended the primary partition on those at some point.
Those may contain stuff for using BitLocker, or they might hold some firmware or something, but they are not needed to use the drive.
There may be an MBR partition on your drive but it's probably empty, and wouldn't matter anyway as far as reading from that drive.
(You could look and see what's in there -if anything. You can assign a letter to that partition and then look at what is in it.)

I never heard of Seagate using their own file system, and it says NTFS in MiniTool, that's just standard. (AND it means the system recognizes it)<--[ EDIT: NOT REALLY. JUST BECAUSE OTHER SOFTWARE CAN SEE THAT I DON"T KNOW IF WINDOWS CAN ]
The way the disk knows how to read the platters is usually on the little circuit board that is part of the drive. ,<--[ EDIT: BUT THE CONTROLLER MAY TRANSLATE FOR COMPATIBILITY< AND THAT SEEMS THE PROBLEM- SEE @Olaf POST BELOW ]
I wonder if there could be an issue with the SATA-USB connection.
I'd be interested to know the model number of the drive itself.

 

Last edited: Sep 22, 2019

Probably one of the USB controllers uses 4k emulation and the other one doesn't. If that's the case, you cannot swap controllers without Windows seeing the drive as raw. It's a common problem, e.g. https://superuser.com/questions/985305/ and https://superuser.com/questions/1271871/.

 

I was going to suggest the following thread, but it's basically referring to the same issue as described by @Olaf above.
https://www.klennet.com/notes/2018-04-14-usb-and-sector-size.aspx

 

This drive is inside:

 

Yes, I had a few drives that only worked with a specific SATA USB controller too.
I've even had a 2.5" external WD drive that failed (the only one so far) and I had no chance to access its data otherwise because it had a weird prolonged PCB that included that wiggly Micro USB port! No internal SATA connector at all.

 

Perhaps a dumb question, but is there any reason Seagate (and Western Digital iirc in some of my experiences), use these custom or whatnot controllers on their external drives (beyond the forcing the user generally to either have it serviced through them or recovered through them and whatnot)?

I have had a couple of these external drives fail over the years, and without knowing this prior to purchase, would try to first open the clamshell enclosures and drop in a sata tray or whatnot to no luck, and then trying to use another drive of the same manufacturer and kind etc, to no avail (I believe even if you were to get two WD drives of the same run and whatnot, you can't take one out of the other and whatnot, but could be wrong, it's been awhile....)....

And I'm on OS X. In this situation, what "would" be my best course of action here if anyone has any ideas....

I'm no expert on this obviously.

thanks guys.

 

It looks like a standard BarraCuda drive alright. I think it's a simple problem, but i may be mistaken. My guess is when disconnected from its case your drive becomes a foreign drive. You should go to Control Panel/Administrative tools/Computer management/Disk management and (if this is really the problem) right click the drive and select import foreign disk.

WD does it on all their external 2.5" drives. They just skip the sata controller on the drive entirely. This brings the cost down for them (you have to think mass production costs here) and of course if the drive fails you are at their mercy when still under warranty and if warranty is passed, you have to either seek professional service or buy a new one. Most people buy a new one and that's where the f**kers bet on hehehe. A couple of years back, i had a 2TB Passport drive that the drive was spinning but the usb connector on its case was broken, rewndering the drive obsolete since you can't connect anywhere without it. It cost me 35 euros to fix it and i am in the comp business as well. With 75 euros i could buy a new one. This is the case for most people, they just go and buy a new one because the cost for them is prohibiting fixing the drive. Oh and OSX doesn't matter mate, it's their hardware that is made cheaply.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 25, 2019

WOW! That would explain some things...except I have the same drive running internally on SATA. "Import foreign disk" is something I had not even heard of. Thanks for the info.

 

Np mate, i just cross my fingers this is the case. Keep in mind that if you have the drive internally and import it (as i showed) and works as a normal internal drive, chances are that if you put it back to its original usb enclosure it will be foreign again...

 

I imagine when you import it as a "foreign disk" on windows, previous data on the drive is not available correct? And would anyone know how to perform this on OS X?

thanks for your insight taskforce.... I know that OS X isn't making their cheap hardware fail , I just use those porta drives for say "works in progress", or movies or whatever, usually nothing important or not backed up elsewhere... but i have had a few fail without warning that were babied etc... oh well.... i'll just mentally write them off as not worth the money to get fixed as I can't even remember what's on them.... I can't remember if it was a WD or Seagate on which I consolidated my whole music library a few years ago on, and fixed all metadata and artwork etc... and before I had a chance to back it up or clone it, boom... died. tried removing drive and putting in other enclosures from same line of drives at the time, no go.... that might be worth the 35$, .... but it was a 3.5 inch spinner, not 2.5.... alas!

appreciate the help and thoughts though!

 

Errr... short answer is no, when you import successfully a foreign disk in Windows, all data on the drive is retained intact. Otherwise there would be no such option, you would just format the drive and off you would go.
On another note, on macOS i don't know of any similar option as "import foreign disk". I can suggest Disk Drill 3, it's a free utility and may solve your problem with data recovery if your drive is still spinning. Here :
https://www.cleverfiles.com/

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2019