External Docking Station for 2.5in or 3.5in SATA III 6Gbps Hard Drives - eSATA or USB 3.0 with UASP

1. The drive may be damaged. Test with a known-working drive, or test the drive directly to a PC.
2. The operating system on the computer may not support reading and writing to the file system on the docked hard drive or SSD.  Remember, Windows cannot read Mac or Linux file systems. Also, macOS can read but not write to NTFS drives.
3. If the drives came from a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), they would not be accessible in our docking stations.
4. If the drive uses 4Kn sectors, check the technical specifications of the docking station, and ensure it can read 4Kn drives.

When you troubleshoot issues with a hard drive dock or duplicator, there are some quick tests that you can complete to rule out potential problems. You can test to make sure that the following components are working correctly and are not the source of the issue:

• IDE, SATA, and eSATA cables
• Hard drives
• Hard drive dock or duplicator

To test your setup components, try the following:

• Use the cables, hard drives, and hard drive dock or duplicator in another setup to see if the problem is with the components or the setup.
• Use a different cable, hard drive, and hard drive dock or duplicator in your setup to see if the problem persists. Ideally, you should test a component that you know works in another setup.

When you test the hard drive and hard drive dock or duplicator, it is recommended that you do the following:

Note: For a hard drive duplicator you may need to switch the device to PC mode (if available).

1. To check Disk Management, press the Windows key + R, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Check to see if your hard drive is listed.
2. Do one of the following:

• If the hard drive is listed with unallocated space, the hard drive needs to be reformatted. Right-click unallocated and click New Simple Volume. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the reformatting.​

Note: Formatting a hard drive erases all of the data on it. Make sure that you back up all of your data before you reformat the hard drive. 

• If the hard drive is listed as healthy but does not have a drive letter, for example, C:, right-click healthy and click Change Drive Letter and Paths. Click Add, assign a drive letter, and click OK.

Note: A formatted hard drive will not show up in Computer or My Computer until it has a drive letter assigned to it.

This docking station allows the hard drive to enforce its own power state, as opposed to enforcing a power state that keeps the hard drive active at all times. Since most newer hard drives have low-power energy conservation modes, this will cause the hard drive to enter an idle state if it is not used for a certain amount of time. 

To confirm that Windows detects your USB device, complete the following:

1. Press the Windows key+R, type devmgmt.msc, and press Enter.
2. In Device Manager, under the appropriate heading, confirm that your expansion card is listed and that there isn't an exclamation mark next to it.  For example, a USB controller card would be under Universal Serial Bus controllers.

Your USB device is listed according to the name of the chipset. To determine the name of the chipset of your USB device, navigate to www.StarTech.com and look on the Technical Specifications tab for your product.

To determine if your hard drive will work in this device, on the product page, click the Technical Specifications tab, and do the following:

• Make sure that the device supports the storage size of your hard drive. If the storage size of your hard drive is larger than what the device was tested with, the hard drive will likely still work with the enclosure.
• Confirm that your hard drive uses the same interface type as the device. For example, IDE, SATA, or M.2.
• Make sure that the device supports the physical size of your hard drive, such as 2.5 inches or 3.5 inches.
• Verify that the power consumption of your hard drive doesn’t exceed the power output of the device. If you’re using multiple hard drives, make sure that the combined power consumption of all of the hard drives doesn’t exceed the power output of the docking station.

Windows 10 

Before you can access a new or formatted drive in your operating system, you need to initialize it first and then create a partition on the drive. A partition defines an area of the drive to use for storing data. The partition uses a file system (for example, ex-FAT, NTFS, and so on).

Initialize a drive

Note: You typically only need to initialize a drive if the drive is new. If you cannot find an uninitialized drive in Disk Management, skip the following steps and try to partition your device.

1. Press the Windows key + R, type compmgmt.msc, and click Run to open Computer Management.

2. Navigate to Disk Management.

3. When prompted to, initialize your disk(s). If you are running Windows^® 7 or later and are using a drive larger than 2TB, initialize the disk(s) with GPT. If you are running an earlier version of Windows, initialize the disk(s) with MBR. For more information, visit the following FAQ: https://www.startech.com/support/faqs/technical-support?topic=hard-drives#mbr-vs-gpt.

4. Click OK.

Create a partition in a drive

Note: The following steps create an NTFS partition that uses the entire drive space. To use a different file system, select a different option in step 6.

1. Right-click Unallocated or RAW volume, and select New Simple Volume.

2. In the New Partition Wizard, click Next.

3. Select Primary partition.

4. Leave the partition size set to default, and click Next.

5. Assign a drive letter or leave it set to the default, and click Next.

6. Enter the following settings to format the partition:

• In the File System field, enter NTFS.
• Set the Allocation unit size to Default.
• In the Volume label field, enter <your name/reference>.
• Select the Perform a quick format check box.
• Clear the Enable file and folder compression check box.

7. Click Next > Finish.

The new drive should appear in Windows Explorer.

Mac OS

Before you can access a new or formatted drive in your operating system, you need to initialize it first and then create a partition on the drive. A partition defines an area of the drive to use for storing data. The partition uses a file system (for example, HFS+, ex-FAT, NTFS, and so on).

Initialize a drive

Mac OSX detects a drive that needs to be initialized and automatically prompts you to initialize the drive. If you are prompted to initialize the drive, click Initialize. If you are not prompted to initialize the drive and you cannot find the drive in Finder, you will need to create a partition on the drive.

Create a partition on a drive

Note: The following steps create an HFS+ (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) partition that uses the entire drive space.

To create a partition on a new drive, complete the following:

1. Open Finder.

2. Navigate to Applications and click Utilities.

3. Open Disk Utility.

4. Select the new drive and click the Partition tab.

5. Click Options and verify that it is set to GUID Partition Table.

6. Enter a name for the partition.

7. Click Partition.

The drive should now be accessible in Finder.

For products related to this article, click here.