[Solved]Hard drive *not* spinning up using sata/power, but *is* spinning up in USB dock

Hardware Hub
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Just bought a couple new hard drives, and both work perfectly fine when connected to my main PC via a USB dock. But for some reason, when I plug them into the new PC that I’m building, only one of the drives shows up. Using a regular sata / power connection on this new PC of course.

This is the USB dock I’m using: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-2-bay-hdd-docking-station/6153102.p?skuId=6153102

I’ve tried swapping power connectors, sata cables, sata ports, etc. etc. I’ve tried every which way to mix and match the cables. Even tried the same sata / power cables that worked with the working HDD on the non-working HDD, and it still doesn’t spin up.

It turns out it’s just that specific drive that isn’t spinning up, not the connections, ports, etc. Yet, again, when it’s plugged into my main PC via the USB dock, it works perfectly fine. I’m just really confused as to what’s going on.

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I expect you are using SATA power connectors?

IIRC some of the new drives are using a new interpretation of SATA power standard, maybe associated with the orange 3.3V connection.

Try powering using a Molex to SATA power connecter, as this doesn’t have the 3.3V, or otherwise conspire to power the drive without the 3.3V connected.

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Okay thank you. I’ll give this a try. Surprisingly I don’t have any molex to sata power cables lying around. Have to order it, feelsbad.

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To give more details on this, the 3.3v power is problematic because it tells the drive to “reset”

To fix this, you can just tape off 3 pins on the SATA power connector (on the drive)

Have a look here for a picture guide: https://imgur.com/a/BFdmB

@TopWargamer you can use this method to test if your disk has this problem.

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I love you. This worked!! I never would have even thought about doing this. Thank you!!

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Glad I could help.

I don’t know the specifics behind it, but this is something we have to do with the 8TB WD external drives to get them to work in some of the old servers, after we’ve removed them from the enclosure. That’s how I know about this. (I’m running 6 of em in my NAS and I had to do this trick)

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