Please help: adapting my old HDD for portable HDD use


Shizuma

Senior Member
Mar 19, 2012
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Hi sempais and clubsnappers,

I have removed (for privacy reasons) my HDD from my old and broken lappys and PC-units. To not 'waste' them, I decided to re-house these faithful and working HDDs (1 is a SATA and another is a IDE) into their respective correct-fit Portable HDD housing.

This is my first time attempting to rehouse HDDs and it did not seem so complex beforehand. There were no manuals included in my HDD housing

When I plugged the Housed Portable HDD units (individually and separately) into my working laptop, alarmingly the units cause my laptop to suffer a sudden hardware shutdown (as if my battery was suddenly removed and the mains supply cut off). Kind of alarming as it suggests a hardware fault eg short circuit

Did I mess up the wiring somewhere? (if that is even possible?) Or do I have to set the jumpers on the HDDs themselves to a certain mode?

Thanks in advance!
 

Big hard disk (3.5 inch) require external power, otherwise they will not work at all. Small (2.5 and 1.8") may require more current than normal USB can deliver. Get a Y cable and connect to two USB sockets if the case has no option for external power. Set the HDD jumpers to Master (IDE only).
 

Hi sempais and clubsnappers,

I have removed (for privacy reasons) my HDD from my old and broken lappys and PC-units. To not 'waste' them, I decided to re-house these faithful and working HDDs (1 is a SATA and another is a IDE) into their respective correct-fit Portable HDD housing.

This is my first time attempting to rehouse HDDs and it did not seem so complex beforehand. There were no manuals included in my HDD housing

When I plugged the Housed Portable HDD units (individually and separately) into my working laptop, alarmingly the units cause my laptop to suffer a sudden hardware shutdown (as if my battery was suddenly removed and the mains supply cut off). Kind of alarming as it suggests a hardware fault eg short circuit

Did I mess up the wiring somewhere? (if that is even possible?) Or do I have to set the jumpers on the HDDs themselves to a certain mode?

Thanks in advance!

How old are your HDD's as well as how much current do they need to run? You need to find out these things as well as find out what version of USB your lappy runs currently. Some of the older IDE units and cases need USB 2 and above to power up. For the SATA, you need to check if your case runs USB 2 or 3 as well. Sounds like they are not very compatible but there should be ways around it. If your drive comes with a cable with 2 USB connectors on the computer side and a mini USB on one side, Chances are that the casing needs USB 2. Should try with a friend's desktop to isolate the USB issue as most Desktops have higher rated power for their USB ports. In terms of jumpers, if you have not messed around with them when you removed them from the old laptops, should not be an issue. I think most cases for IDE work with a Master setting for HDD and SATA should be auto detect.
 

Thanks for the help. I am now going to give it a go on the bigger 3.5" disk (which comes with external power supply cord). Wish me luck. it's 1TB inside. If my laptop is fried (touch wood!) i will post updates through my mobile. hopefully won't have to come to this...wish me luck!
 

update: i am a genius, did not check the data socket before leaving, now I see that it is a standard USB data-socket onboard the device and all I have with me are the micro usb. :sweat:

to be continued on Monday