Trouble using a Toshiba MK7575GSX as an external drive

forever_novice

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I have a Toshiba internal hard drive MK7575GSX. It's from an older HP laptop, and I'd like to use the drive as an external one. I have tried an enclosure (Brand name Ranz...with an IS888 SATA to USB3.0 bridge) , and the SATA to USB 3.0 /2.0 converters from my other two external Seagate drives. But it only shows up as a drive on my TV, not on any laptops, regardless of what port/connector combination I use (Usb 3.0/3.0, 2.0/3.0, 3.0/2.0 or 2.0/2.0). The USB notification in the taskbar shows eithern "USB 2.0 cable" or "IS888 SATA to USB 3.0 bridge" or something like that.
Do I need a specific kind of SATA to USB converter? Does the drive have power requirements that are only met by the TV?
 
When you connect the drive+enclosure to a USB port and boot the computer, does either the drive or the enclosure show up in the BIOS?
Booting as above and continuing into Windows, can you see the drive or the enclosure in Win Dev. Mgr.? How about in Win Disk Mgmt?

Sometimes, if you use an external HDD on a TV, the TV will reformat the drive to a proprietary HDD format which only the TV can read. Meanwhile, if you aren't watching closely and paying attention to all of the warnings/alerts, the TV will install the new format and wipe out your files contained in the previous format!

As for the power requirements, does the enclosure have an external power source ("brick") that plugs into a wall outlet or does it only get power from the USB port on the PC? The bricks are much better and less prone to have problems.

If there is no brick and power is only through the USB connection, do you have a USB hub between the PC and the HDD? If the USB hub is only powered by the USB port on the PC, this can be another source of problems, as the hub does not have enough power. If there is an external power source to the hub, a brick, that should work fine.

You shouldn't need any special USB to SATA converter. If you want to use the HDD on your PC, you just need to be sure that you don't use it on a TV, or if you do, be sure that the TV does NOT format the HDD.

Yogi
 

forever_novice

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Like I said it's an older laptop's internal hard drive, so it doesn't have a power brick and is powered through its SATA connection, for which I do need a SATA to USB connector in order to make it an External drive, as opposed to a simple SATA based Internal one, which it already is. The TV doesn't reformat the drive, it simply reads files from it, as I've connected my other 3 external hard drives to the TV and read files without the TV affecting the drives or their data in any way.

I do not use a USB hub.

Thanks for the suggestions. But I hope someone who has done this before could guide me with this.

I haven't yet tried to boot up Windows with the drive plugged in, so I'll get back to you on that.
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UPDATE : I'm not sure how to check if it's being detected in the BIOS.
It does spin up when connected to any usb 3 port, but the computer itself detects only the usb bridge, not the drive.

I connected it using a Transcend StoreJet SJ3 SATA to USB (a USB 3.0 enclosure rather), with the same results, and I don't have another drive to test with, but it does connect fine to the LG TV, and the contents are visible. I just hope I can save the data before the drive dies on me.