Hard Drive Enclosure for 3.5in SATA Drives - USB 3.0

When you troubleshoot issues with a hard drive enclosure, 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:

• Cables
• Hard drives
• Hard drive enclosure

To test your setup components, try the following:

• Use the cables, hard drives, and hard drive enclosure in another setup to see if the problem is with the components or the setup.
• Use a different cable, hard drive, and hard drive enclosure 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 enclosure, it is recommended that you do the following:

• To check Disk Management, press the Windows key + R, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Check to see if your hard drive is listed.
• 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.

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

1. Click the Apple icon.
2. Click About This Mac.
3. Click More Info or System Report.
4. Under the appropriate heading, confirm that your USB device is listed and that there isn't an error. For example, a network card would be under Ethernet Cards.

You may need to refresh the System Information page after you plug in your device.  To do so, press Command + R with the System Information page open.

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 enclosure, on the product page, click the Technical Specifications tab, and do the following:

• Make sure that the enclosure supports the storage size of your hard drive. If the storage size of your hard drive is larger than what the enclosure 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 enclosure. For example, IDE, SATA, or M.2.
• Make sure that the enclosure supports the physical size of your hard drive, such as 2.5 inches or 3.5 inches.
• Make sure that the enclosure supports the height of your hard drive. For example, 9 mm or 15 mm.
• Verify that the power consumption of your hard drive doesn’t exceed the power output of the enclosure. 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 enclosure.

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.