Laptop SSD as external PC drive

Hey.

So I have this older laptop SSD I'd like to use as an external drive for my PC. I have the right cable (it's a SATA to USB 3.0 cable), it fits the drive perfectly and all that. I've tried several USB ports, both 3.0 and 2.0, and still can't get the PC to recognize the drive. It makes the USB device added sound, then a few seconds later it makes the device removed sound and then an error message comes up that Windows can't detect the device.

Any ideas? I'm on Windows 10. There may be some tricky way to fix this but I'm just not sure about this stuff. Thanks in advance!

I assume your running power to it out of your pc case?

Does it show up in devices, device manager or disk management?

sakichop said:

I assume your running power to it out of your pc case?

Does it show up in devices, device manager or disk management?

Click to expand...

The drive doesn't have a separate power output, so I guess the USB is the power. It's plugged directly into my PC.

This is the SSD I'm trying to use, Kingston 120gb SSDNow. -

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Dig...3853954&sr=8-2&keywords=kingston+120gb+ssdnow

The cable I have is a SATA to USB cable. This one -

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SAT....5"+SATA+III+Hard+Drive+Adapter+Cable+w/+UASP

The device shows for a short 10 seconds or so in Device Manager when I plug it in, but then I get the "USB device not recognized error" and it disappears. It also never shows in the Disk Management area, and on the Device Manager it ends up becoming "Unrecognized USB Device" or whatever under the USB section.

Hmm, Things to try.

-First just restart your pc and try again. Hook the SSD to the cable first then plug in to your pc.
- check your USB drivers update if needed.
-try hooking up the SSD internally first, then format it. Then try hooking it up with USB again.
-check power settings and make sure usb selective suspend setting is disable.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

- Have you tested the drive via SATA first to be sure it's fully working?

- Have you tried another 2.5" drive on that adapter to be sure there's nothing wrong with it?

- The USB 3.0 power is designed to supply 900ma max. Does that drive require more? (you may need a USB Y-cable if that's the case: AMAZON )

- Are you having issues with other USB devices not being recognized?

- Have you tried on a different computer?

- Have you unplugged all other USB devices on it in case the hub is overwhelmed?

Also, try these:

USB DEVICE NOT RECOGNIZED - WIN 10

Thanks for the responses fellas. I think the drive is fine but it probably doesn't have enough power if that's the case. Dunno. Apparently when writing data this SSD needs 2.025 volts, which is more than double 900ma (if that's correct). Although when idle it should be enough to run it, so I'm not really sure.

I've tried a different computer, tried directly plugging into various USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, Don't have any other drives to test, unfortunately. I was hoping that cable made it work as a cheap and quick 120gb SSD. 4K videos are huge and I really need more storage space. So, who knows.

Tried restarting, did the USB power settings, etc. Might open my PC and see if I can just put it in manually. Are there SATA slots for a laptop-size drive in a newer PC? I don't know anything about that. I have a decent motherboard (SATA III), but this SSD is really small and compact as you can see in the links I gave.

Tried all the steps in USB DEVICE NOT RECOGNIZED as well. Researched various stuff with Google, nothing seems to work. The drive was fine last I tested it and really was unused for the most part (the laptop was just a Steam streaming device basically, so it didn't see much use). Anywho, maybe I should get the USB Y-cable or open the PC.

Fluent said:

Thanks for the responses fellas. I think the drive is fine but it probably doesn't have enough power if that's the case. Dunno. Apparently when writing data this SSD needs 2.025 volts, which is more than double 900ma (if that's correct). Although when idle it should be enough to run it, so I'm not really sure.

Tried restarting, did the USB power settings, etc. Might open my PC and see if I can just put it in manually. Are there SATA slots for a laptop-size drive in a newer PC? I don't know anything about that. I have a decent motherboard, but this SSD is really small and compact as you can see in the links I gave.

Click to expand...

The Kingston specs said wattage is 2.052 but I don't see voltage. Where are you getting voltage from? Milliamps = Watts (2.052) / Voltage (2.025) which would equal 1013ma, meaning (assuming your voltage spec is right) you're slightly under the power requirement for the drive.

As for plugging it into your PC, some cases have 2.5" mounts, but you don't need the mounts to just test the drive. Just plug a SATA cable from MB to drive and SATA power cable from PSU to drive, and let it hang there while you test it.

Caddy said:

The Kingston specs said wattage is 2.052 but I don't see voltage. Where are you getting voltage from? Milliamps = Watts (2.052) / Voltage (2.025) which would equal 1013ma, meaning (assuming your voltage spec is right) you're slightly under the power requirement for the drive.

As for plugging it into your PC, some cases have 2.5" mounts, but you don't need the mounts to just test the drive. Just plug a SATA cable from MB to drive and SATA power cable from PSU to drive, and let it hang there while you test it.

Click to expand...

Ah, thank you. I bet it is slightly underpowered, then. I'll open it up tomorrow and check it out. Thanks again!

Some pc (well mine anyway) have bios options for usb 3.0 (assuming you plug the drive into usb 3.0 and not 2.0 port) for adjusting the power outage. It isn't fine grain on mine ) just low or high.
-
Also there are sata to external sata connectors if you have an external sata connector on your pc as well as usb to sata with multiple usb (for additional power) cables.

No help, I'm afraid, but I'd just say that I've found that those types of interface adapters tend to be extremely flaky. I have a dock for hard drives, that I bought for doing backups and imaging. It works with certain disks, on certain days. If it recognises a drive successfully, I take that to mean six more weeks of winter.

Instead of a cheap adapter that usually doesn't work (saw one such "attempt", it just didn't budge), get yourself a nice and shiny disk dock. This is how it looks like and you can use it for many old HDDs:
https://www.alzashop.com/lc-power-lc-dock-u3-d2411063.htm?o=1

I image about 20 drives a week at work using this guy:

VANTEC USB 3.0 to 2.5" SATA

Never had an issue.

We have the dock that Joxer linked too, but never had to use it.

Cool, thanks fellas. I think the drive is actually dead. Hooked it up today directly and it wasn't recognized no matter what I did. Oh well. I'm probably going to get another internal drive soon since I have an open SATA slot, and then maybe just get a decent 4 or 8 TB external drive sometime, just for storing videos and the like.

It wasn't all bad as I learned a bit about SATA and how to install various components. Good stuff.

Alright, so, rather than throw away a 120gb SSD, is there any way to "fix" it and get it recognized/working again? I have an open 6.0 SATA III slot, I think, so it would be cool if there were some fix to get this SSD working again to have another fast drive available. Any ideas?

Unfortunately, if a hard disk is broken, fixing it is not usually a feasible project.

Dang. I'm thinking of maybe getting a decent 1 TB HDD and doing a RAID setup or something if fixing the SSD is not possible. Maybe the new 1 TB could be used as a backup drive. I have an external drive and would like to maybe use a new internal HDD to backup important things that are currently on that one.

One thing that is worth a try. See if your SSD manufacturer has a management utility for its drives (they usually do). I did have one SSD that suddenly seemed to die, and it was a known bug that was fixed by updating the firmware with the utility.

Oh cool, thanks. I actually read briefly that someone fixed their SSD by updating the firmware, so this is worth a shot. Going to try it now and see what happens.

Also found a post about reviving SSDs by plugging them in for a certain amount of time and then unplugging them. Basically power cycling them without plugging in the data cable. I tried 30 sec on/30 sec off and it still wasn't recognized. 30 min on/30 sec off may be worth a shot, might try it later but likely the drive is just toast.

Another possibility is to use Parted Magic and do a "secure wipe" (available on the Ultimate Boot CD). It's only worked a couple times for me but worth a shot.