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I have been having a lot of problems connecting different kinds of SATA drives to my PCs using SATA to USB adapters and the problems seem to boil down to sector size mismatches: sometimes the original sector size is 512 but the adapter "presents" a sector size of 4096, thus rendering the contents of the drive illegible to the OS, or vice versa, showing 512 instead of 4096 with the same results. I recall looking into this a couple years ago and found out the problem is in the adapters themselves, because of a "thing" related to the SATA version or SATA mode supported by the adapters, however I don't seem to find much information about this these days. What exactly is this "thing" I'm looking for when buying an adapter, so I know it won't mess with my drives?
These are the most relevant places and questions I've looked up so far, but don't exactly address what is the "thing" that's missing:
- logical sector size changes depending on whether it is attached via USB or direct SATA
- External Enclosure; USB to IDE & SATA. Only old sata drives are recognized by Windows. Why?
- IDE SATA to USB 2 Adapter troubleshooting
- http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282284-32-using-sata-adapter-info-hard-drive
- http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/why-is-the-drive-not-showing-when-i-connect-my-old-hard-drive-to-my-new-computer-via-usb-to-sata-cable/
- What do the "ATA/IDE Configuration" options in ASUS motherboard BIOS?
TL;DR
There is something regarding the SATA version or some SATA mode that makes some adapters mess up sector sizes on some drives, making the illegible but not unusable, i.e.: I can create a new partition table and use them just fine, except the next adapter I try may or may not force me to do the same. What is it?
Maybe some manufacturers just choose to implement this. Compare this answer and comments below.
– Kamil Maciorowski – 2017-09-19T03:50:32.253That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you. – arielnmz – 2017-09-19T04:42:21.310