jeffw_00 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 (edited) Hi - I bought this enclosure (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LS5NFQ2) and a WD RedPlus drive to use for temporary storage which I formatted in the enclosure. BIG MISTAKE. Apparently some enclosures (as I discovered now reading the reviews) use a non-standard format, mating the drive to the enclosure. I'm wondering a) Is there is some way to tell whether a drive does this other than reading reviews? I thought maybe it had to do with UASP but I'm finding some enclosures with 1000+ reviews, UASP, but no complaints in the comments. b) The enclosure appears to read drives formatted elsewhere (like SATA-attached to my desktop), but should I worry that if I format a drive SATA-attached to my desktop, and then put it in the enclosure, that over time the enclosure will somehow change the format and give me the original problem? Does anyone here understand what's going on and can perhaps provide me with some understanding? Thanks! /j Edited January 24, 2022 by jeffw_00 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 Hello, It looks like the external USB drive enclosure has a standard USB 3.0 Type B connector, as shown at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#Connectors. Type B is most often seen on printers, but there's no reason it cannot be used elsewhere, such as on this enclosure. Internally, this enclosure appears to have normal SATA data and power connectors. These connectors have no bearing on how drives attached to them are partitioned, formatted, read to, or written from. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 On 1/24/2022 at 6:11 PM, jeffw_00 said: Hi - I bought this enclosure (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LS5NFQ2) and a WD RedPlus drive to use for temporary storage which I formatted in the enclosure. BIG MISTAKE. Apparently some enclosures (as I discovered now reading the reviews) use a non-standard format, mating the drive to the enclosure. I'm wondering a) Is there is some way to tell whether a drive does this other than reading reviews? I thought maybe it had to do with UASP but I'm finding some enclosures with 1000+ reviews, UASP, but no complaints in the comments. b) The enclosure appears to read drives formatted elsewhere (like SATA-attached to my desktop), but should I worry that if I format a drive SATA-attached to my desktop, and then put it in the enclosure, that over time the enclosure will somehow change the format and give me the original problem? Does anyone here understand what's going on and can perhaps provide me with some understanding? Thanks! /j Skip down the comments page at Amazon and you find this Quote After finding James Kirk's review, I found out the fix is to download the Jmicron JMS578 Sata USB 3.0 Controller Firmware update (do a web search for it). Connect the enclosure with no hard drive in it, turn it on, and run the fwupdatetool.exe file. In the tool, Load the .bin file that has to do with "Bus Power". When it's done running it will tell you to power off the device. I inserted my hard drive in the enclosure, powered it back on and hoila! My pre-designated Drive letter for the hard drive now shows up in Windows File Explorer and is accessible. All this is way too much for most people to go through to get something to work that's supposed to be "plug and play". I'm glad I was able to get it to work, but I would suggest getting something that works better out of the box. These may be the updates you need but I would double check. https://www.sabrent.com/downloads/ DS-UBLK/EC-DFLT – Firmware Update 1 files 32959 downloads This is firmware update for our Docking Stations to support hard drives that are over 4TB Firmware Update, Windows Drivers Download EC-DFLT 2 files 12368 downloads USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station User Manuals Download EC-DFLT-EC-DFFN Update 1 files 26406 downloads EC-DFLT-EC-DFFN Update v1_0_0_8 Firmware Updates Download Jmicron Update Tool: EC-SSHD, EC-UASP, EC-UK30,EC-UM3W, EC-DFLT, EC-NVME, EC-TFNE, EC-TFNB – For Windows 7 and higher 1 files 83055 downloads Firmware-Update Tool Firmware Update Download 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted January 30, 2022 Author Share Posted January 30, 2022 Thanks guys - but I guess I explained myself badly. I have no concern with the connector used, and the drive works fine in the enclosure. The problem I notice is that if I take the drive out of the enclosure and connect directly to the PC via SATA, it shows up as GPT Protected and I can't use it. It appears that because I formatted the drive in the enclosure, I can use it only in the enclosure, because somehow the enclosure affected the formatting. I contacted Sabrent support who were responsive, but despite all the other reviews from people who experienced what I did, they claimed their drive never affected formatting. They blamed my issue, steadfastly, on my use of a RedPlus drive because those are marketed for NAS. In my particular application, I needed a CMR drive because the enclosure is powered down most of the time for security. (In fact, I don't see the harm in using the better-built Red-Plus drives as storage on a desktop, even WD says they can be used as a 1-disk "cloud"). Anyway - I think the solution is to take the drive out of the enclosure, connect it to the PC via SATA, reformat it, and then put it back in the enclosure. Then I think I can later take it out of the enclosure and connect to other PCs without incident. But I was surprised that the enclosure affected the formatting - I found an article on this somewhere (said it changed the sector size) but I can't find it anymore. Is this news to everyone or have you seen this? That's really my question. Thanks! /j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 It is Amazon. Just return it and get something that won't worry you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted January 30, 2022 Author Share Posted January 30, 2022 (edited) CRP: Why would the RedPlus worry me? I don't think it should. I'm asking if I'm wrong. Do you think I should be worried? Why? (I'm here to learn). Thanks! /j Edited January 30, 2022 by jeffw_00 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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