7
The environment
I just bought a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000LM048 HDD. It's an Advanced Format drive, with 4096-byte sectors.
I planned using it with my cheap-but-trusted (and I do mean cheap, it's really generic chinese and I paid about 5 USD for it) 2.5" HDD enclosure, that's been with me for 5 years and multiple HDDs with no issues (I'm not sure if I ever used an Advanced Format HDD with it). It's basically a JMicron JM20329 Hi-Speed USB to SATA Bridge chip with some transistors and a USB port. Looks exactly like this:
When I bought the 1 TB HDD, I wasn't aware of the issues involving Advanced Format drives and HDD enclosures. I strongly suspect it might be playing a part here, but under certain circunstances I can access the data.
Now I'm not sure sure, because I just found an older Western Digital 500 GB Advanced Format HDD and it shows up on Windows Explorer using this same enclosure... What's going on here?!
The issue
When I connect it via USB enclosure to a Windows 8.1 laptop, no new volumes show up on Windows Explorer. When running Fedora 25 on the same laptop, connected via the same HDD enclosure, I can see the folders and files.
It works on a different Fedora 25 PC when I connect it via internal SATA. I have no Windows PC nearby where I can test it on internal SATA.
Possibly related: There seems to be something wrong / strange with the partition scheme, see bold text in the sections below. I'm really puzzled by it, as I have never seen a similar case before.
Tests and diagnostics
Windows 8.1 via USB Enclosure on my laptop
Since others have asked: I attach the drive after Windows has booted. Will see if it has any difference attaching it prior to boot.
- The USB enclosure gets automatically detected and installed as "USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge".
- The drive doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.
- Disk Management (
diskmgmt.msc
) shows the disk as "Online, unallocated 931.5 GB, MBR-style partition table":
Fedora 25 via USB Enclosure on my laptop
I can see the files and folders and copy data to and from the drive.
disks
information
- Model: ST1000LM048-2E7172 (SDM1)
- Size: 1.0 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
- There's no Partitioning entry
- Serial Number: [redacted]
- Assessment: Disk is OK, one bad sector.
- Volumes:
- Size: 1.0 TB — 850 GB free (15.0% full)
- Device: /dev/sdc (notice there's no partition number!)
- There's no Partition Type entry
- Contents: NTFS — Mounted at /run/media/[redacted]
disks
SMART report
- Updated: 47 years, 1 month and 23 days ago (!!!)
- Temperature: ---
- Powered on: ---
- Self-test result: Unknown ()
- Self assessment: Threshold not exceeded
- Overall assessment: Disk is OK, one bad sector
- SMART Attributes: the table is entirely blank (!!!)
fdisk -l output
Disk /dev/sdc: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x[redacted]
Fedora 25 via internal SATA on a desktop PC
I can see the files and folders and copy data to and from the drive.
disks
information
- Model: ST1000LM048-2E7172 (SDM1)
- Size: 1.0 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
- There's no Partitioning entry
- Serial Number: [redacted], same as above
- Assessment: Disk is OK (33 C / 91 F).
- Volumes:
- Size: 1.0 TB — 850 GB free (15.0% full)
- Device: /dev/sda (notice there's no partition number!)
- There's no Partition Type entry
- Contents: NTFS — Mounted at /run/media/[redacted]
disks
SMART report
- Updated: Less than a minute ago
- Temperature: 36 C / 97 F
- Powered on: 8 hours and 0 minutes
- Self-test result: Last self-test completed successfully
- Self assessment: Threshold not exceeded
- Overall assessment: Disk is OK
- SMART Attributes: see image below
fdisk -l output
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x[redacted]
@Walmart (1) I'd gladly reformat and repartition the drive, but I have nowhere to temporarily place the files, at least for the following week. (2) I'll check what the POST message shows on the desktop (nothing on the laptop, I suspect, but I'll check as well). (3) I've rephrased the question, but it already states Disk Management sees an unallocated drive. – That Brazilian Guy – 2017-02-24T03:32:01.570
1
...looks like the enclosure doesn't like AF drives. This is very puzzling; I've dealt with several cases where an enclosure would make a 512e drive look like 4Kn, but your enclosure is making it appear as 512n! (Attention reviewers: this means it's not a duplicate, please do not vote to close.)
– bwDraco – 2017-02-24T03:48:21.960@bwDraco I thought so, but I just found an older AF 500GB HDD that this enclosure reads fine on Win 8.1... WTF! (will add that to the question) – That Brazilian Guy – 2017-02-24T03:50:03.947
Do you have 150 GB of space and a way to transfer that to the 500 GB drive to reformat, etc.? I see it stating "
Size: 1.0 TB — 850 GB free (15.0% full)
", and that you just found a 500 GB HDD so I thought I'd ask. – Pimp Juice IT – 2017-02-24T03:55:17.450@Walmart Well... That 500 GB HDD was lost in a desk because it once fell about 50cm... hard. =/ – That Brazilian Guy – 2017-02-24T04:00:27.197
Can you tell what the bridge chip on the enclosure is? If possible, open the enclosure and post images of the largest/most important chips on the PCB. We need to be able to read the lettering on the chips. – bwDraco – 2017-02-24T04:04:31.693
@bwDraco It's a JMicron JM20329, I found a PDF link and placed it on the question body – That Brazilian Guy – 2017-02-24T04:20:43.067
1It's not too uncommon for USB enclosures to not support SMART. Different software handles that fact in different ways. Don't read too much into the SMART-related data looking weird or missing entirely. – a CVn – 2017-02-24T07:14:11.853
Possibly related: Windows does not mount USB NTFS superfloppy
– gronostaj – 2017-02-24T11:36:33.587