Pete The Biker

A friend has given me a desktop PC which has a boot problem, and I have been trying to get the data off the SATA HDD before a complete reinstall of the software (although I have my suspicions that the HDD is on the way out).

I have bought an Akasa HDD enclosure so that I can connect the HDD to my own pc via USB. I have done this before with this HDD via a friend's Akasa box (identical to mine).

However I cannot get the HDD to spin up in the Akasa. I have checked the voltages in the cable to the HDD and that is OK, and the Akasa works OK with a PATA drive.

I suspected that the HDD was finally FUBARED, but stangely when I power it via the power cable in the desktop pc that it came out of, it runs fine, and I can get the data off.

OK I thought........ I will try it back in my friend's Akasa using his cables (in which it worked perfectly before). But now it won't start in there either.

I haven't got another SATA drive to try in the Akasa.

So........
* the HDD works
* the Akasa works
* but the HDD won't work in either of the Akasas even though it worked in one of them before

Any ideas from the collective Scoobynet brains? It has me and my mate baffled..............

Cheers

Pete The Biker

Pete The Biker

Even more baffled now...........

It's working! The only thing that's different is that I had the HDD running for an hour or so (powered by the pc while I copied the files off it....)

When I plugged the Akasa'a power cable back onto the HDD it started up OK.

The only thing I can think is that the HDD (which had been unused for a couple months) was perhaps sensitive to power levels and needed 'warming up'........ But that's a bit far-fetched?

Any comments would be appreciated..........

Pete The Biker

kernel

I've had problems with external HDs that sometimes work, sometimes don't or that only work on some PCs and not others. Seems to often be related to how much juice the USB can provide. Although each port should be able to provide 0.5A and I've seen Windows complain I'm trying to draw too much current (although only seen that for a passive hub) I've found unplugging other USB devices enables more power and the drive would work.

Pete The Biker

I had similar thoughts about the availability of power, but the Akasa has its own mains power supply and doesn't draw its power via the USB.

Pete The Biker

spectrum48k

I was just about to ask , does the Akasa have it's own power supply, but you've answered that.

Generally I think it's always best when using an external hard disk, for it to have its own psu.

Joey_turbo had a sort of similar issue on here recently and it turned out to be the connecting data cable. He swapped it for another and it worked.

mannyo

If you are connecting via the SATA power connection, these can be a bit tempermental due to their poor design.

Pete The Biker

Thanks for your comments guys.

An update......

The HDD has been behaving itself since the last posting, and I put it back into the desktop it came out of.

As I mentioned, my friend's PC suffered arratic BSOD problems, and unltimately wouldn't boot at all. He was so fed up with it that he decided to give it to me as payment in kind for rescuing his data (about 80Gb, mainly music which belonged to his daughter who was mighty stressed at losing it).

When I tried it I just got POST beeps and the processor fan was running like a jet engine. It turns out that the CMOS battery needed replacing, and the RAM cards needed reseating. For some reason the fan issue is linked to the RAM problem.

It is a 3 year old Dell Dimension 8400 and turns out to be 3Ghz with 512Mb of RAM, and with just XP and Office installed it is pretty sprightly compared with my 6 year old 2GHz machine which is laden with crap. It also has a 7 speaker surround sound system including a sub-woofer, and 17" monitor.

I did a fresh install of XP and had to overcome problems such as a dirty recovery CD (not that sort of dirty!) which was corrupting install files, and unclear instructions from Dell about driver installation. It seems to be running OK now (after loads of updates from Microsoft) although if I move it or open the casing while it is running it causes the problem with the RAM connections again and shuts it down. If I don't move it, all seems fine.

I shall use it as a secondary machine for the time being until I am satisfied that its stable, and then gradually migrate the small proportion of the programs that I actually use.

Not bad for free (he also bought the Akasa which I am keeping)!



Pete The Biker