[solved] USB3-SATA dock/cradle/adapter for 3.5+2.5" hdds w/o 4K/sect. emulation? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2024, 02:45:56 pm
content: Can anyone give me any advice on choosing a USB3-SATA dock/station/adapter for 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives that can easily handle drive sizes of 4TB and larger?However, 4K sector size emulation should not be used as I want to access hard drives that have been removed from a PC and have already been internally partitioned and formatted in the PC (512 bytes/sector).I already have the dock shown in the photo, but it works with 4K emulation, so the HDDs formatted in the dock and in the PC are not interchangeable.SOLUTION:Reflashed firmware of my oldSharkoon SATA QuickPort XT USB 3.0 dock:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/which-usb3-sata-dockcradleadapter-for-3-52-5-hdds-without-4ksec-emulation/msg5459084/#msg5459084

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2024, 06:12:53 pm
content: Good luck with your search. I have yet to find a vendor who knows anything more about their product than the price and how many they can move.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2024, 11:00:50 pm
content: never had any problems with sata / ide dock and many removed hdd from pc's, from old era w9x and up ...if the controller is recent enough say 2tb support and more, it should support any hdd formatting / partitions GPT boot etc ...unless you deal with very weird ones that i dont know ? even recovered some unix drives ..buy from Amazon, you can return it ?? or your local computer store

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2024, 11:10:55 pm
content: Quote from: coromonadalix on April 16, 2024, 11:00:50 pmI have seen hundreds (?) of cases in various storage forums.USB adapters silently change the sector size:https://www.klennet.com/notes/2018-04-14-usb-and-sector-size.aspx

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2024, 05:39:52 am
content: coromonadalix:I partitioned and formatted a 4TB hard drive in the PC (Win10).Result: It is accessible in the PC (detects 512 bytes/sect.) but NOT accessible on my USB dock.Problem: I can't access HDDs that have been removed from a PC.I partitioned and formatted the same 4TB hard drive in my USB dock.Result: It is accessible on the dock (detects 4KB/sect.) but NOT accessible in the PC.Problem: If my USB dock breaks, installing HDDs in a PC won't allow me to access the HDDs formatted on USB dock.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2024, 07:14:28 am
content: I have never had a problem with the drive or sector size. I picked up an Orico external hard drive docking station for that kind of work:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B6ZYSG1M/

author: alm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2024, 08:51:59 pm
content: Are you sure it's the USB dock that's emulating 4k sectors, and not your motherboard emulating 512 byte sectors? As far as I know modern, larger drives all use 4k sectors. Just some drives emulate 512 byte sectors in firmware and other expose the 4k sectors directly.I'm surprised a GPT partition table would care about sector size beyond partition alignment. What does the partition table look like on the "inaccessible disk"? Does it claim the partition table is not valid? What doesparted -lshow when booted into Linux from a live USB stick while the disk is "inaccessible"?

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 06:46:22 am
content: Quote from: alm on April 17, 2024, 08:51:59 pmI used thewmic diskdrive get BytesPerSector,Modelcommand.I made screenshots of the results at my other PC I can access and upload in the evening today.The HDD is aWD40EZAZ.I think the emulation to 512 bytes is done by the HDD electronics, but I'm not 100% sure...https://shop.x-hardware.de/4000-GB-Western-Digital-WD-Blue-WD40EZAZ/22667"Sektoren: 4KB mit Emulation (512e)"https://drivesolutions.com/western-digital-blue-4tb-5400rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-256mb-cache-3-5-desktop-hard-drive-wd40ezaz.html"Advanced Format: Yes - 512e (emulation) 4096 (4Kn native) Logical Data Block Length"Quote from: alm on April 17, 2024, 08:51:59 pmInaccessible disk means:No drive letteris shown andWindows Disk Managementasks "should the disk be initialized?".I've not tried to look at the partition table nor used Linux tools, but Windows 7/10 did not claim a not valid partition table.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 08:05:31 am
content: @ GreybeardWhen you format a drive, sure some default values will be pushed onto the drive fat 32 ntfs etc .... GPT is the new gimmick to be able to BOOT on BIG driveshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_TableBut normally a good dock, will follow the drive formatting and access it, multi partitions too ....BUT if it's a Mac drive or Linux partitions, say in windows you need to have the proper tools / and drivers etc ... or other os'es, and theses can play small tricks, sometimes Windows will not show them ...And when this happens you need software who will access the drive inraw modeand do recover or clone etc .. once again you have to get the proper SW for that, and they don't work all the same way ...Same for hardware, if you work with older stuff, you'll get hardware limitations too, controller side, capacity ... motherboards ..I have a bunch of ide to sata / sata to ide drives cards, who are able to read old drivesEbay few bucks $$$ china junk, who work pretty well some PCI slot promise ata (IDE) cards usb docks ... usb floppies, but dont do 720kI had to restart an very old TEK scope (20-25 years) with Win98, WinME, Win2k would crash, boy it was a nightmare finding all the needed stuff, motherboad locked out ... floppies in 2024? using some "plop" boot disk to install usb drivers at a DOS level ?? and finding genuine CD-Roms was a nightmare too, no burned iso's would work ...And yes the infamousdo you want to format the drivemay happen, witch i do refuses right awayif the mbr is bad / defective, that's another storyAs for your dock story, i never saw that behavior, and i would say try to find another dock, and buy a more recent one who at least goes beyond 4 TB, there are at 8TB or 12TB modelsSorry to say, but as i wrote earlier, i recover very old drives with an WAVLINK or my IOcrest 8 slot tower, they certify 48 bit lba ... and do 4tb and upeven old 4 8 20 30 40 80 gig models worked very well ? i have a drawer full of drives 2.5" 3.5" ide and sata 1 sata 2BUT for your problems i can not say, it can / could happen to me too, there is so many things who can go wrong ...As for@fzabkarlink for usb enclosures who change specs, i never experienced thati would say: the usb chip / interface is not good enough,but when it is possible, i always connect to the motherboard IDE or SATA interface, never use any external interface(s) unless in deep sh@@$The drives i use right now are : swapped between the dock / tower / and hot-swap caddies in my computer, formatted by win 7 win 10 win 11 i have no problems at all and between computers too ?? maybe i'm lucky ?

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 08:11:10 am
content: oh in the old daysyou had to play with sectors, head quantity ... etc .. to set the drive capacity and format it properly ... even on old mfm rll ones, and the time you had to use DOS debug commands to access the controller and do the formatting .... some controller where pretty powerfulold times

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 09:14:53 am
content: What do you think about this:Could I reformat the HDD from 512 emulated bytes/sect (512e) to 4K native (4Kn) to make mainboard and USB dock handle the HDD correctly?Is there a WD specific tool to do that?

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 10:24:48 am
content: Don't want to be rude, nor offensiveBut i don't like your "emulated" thing, it's done automatically given on the "formatting" normally when you choose FAT / NTFS / GPT etc .. and all should be fine.The hdd controller knows what to do ... i never played with theses settings, nor force a setting ?What i'm saying is :EX: if the drive is seen and ok in a machine, say you boot from it, form a connected ide or sata port ... or formatted it, non bootable, just storage, and say put lots of files in it to do some testsAnd after, you put it into a dock and the dock don't see any partition or don't mount the drive properly, you don't see files ... the dock is the problem ... it's an hardware compatibility problem of some sort ??The only problem i see so far, many docks wont let windows boot from it (if the drive was booting directly connected) maybe due to BIOS restrictions, secure boot ... or use legacy mode ... even if you select boot from usb ... even tried some usb to nvme / sata interfaces ...So far only usb floppy and usb keys are booting fine in my case ?For the drives at some point in the past you had drives managers softwares made by Ontrack or WD format tools, Seagate, Hitachi and many brands had them, but in them i never saw changing the formatting parametersBut now you rely on the OS to do the job, do scandisks of defragment the drive etc ...you have free partition managers and paid ones, some can migrate entire systems, manipulate partition sizes, clone etc ... tried many, i have a bunch of them.And lastit will depend on the OS and or the hardware too, you had 128gb limits and other things too in the past, from the DOS era, windows 3 and up, old windows can not cope with bigger partition sizes etc ... you have to search for thatthe old scope i restarted had theses limits over 20 gig of size, it went bezerk if i tried bigger, it had an 6.4 gig drive in it ...etc ...

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 11:37:00 am
content: There is no such thing as a "good dock" or a "bad dock". Some will present a fixed 512-byte physical sector size to the USB host while others will present a fixed 4KB physical sector size. Still others will use 512-byte sectoring for drives with a capacity less than 2TiB, and automatically switch to 4KB sectoring for drives larger than 2TiB.The reason for this behaviour is so that large drives can be used with legacy OS-es such as Windows XP. Since Win XP is limited to MBR partitions, the maximum number of sectors it can address is 2^32. At 512 bytes per sector, that works out to a capacity of 2TiB. However, if the sector size is increased to 4KB (= 8 x 512B), then XP can see a USB mass storage device with a capacity of 16TiB. This was how Seagate approached this problem with their early external drives. WD's My Book externals can be "fast formatted" to present either sector size to the host.Note that these USB bridges behave the same way whether the drive is a 512n (native) or 512e (emulated) model. That is, it has nothing to do with whether the drive is an Advanced Format model with 4KB physical sectors.Also, it should be said that some modern high capacity SATA and SAS drives are now shipping as 512e models but can be fast formatted to 4Kn by the user. This requires a specific utility, usually supplied by the manufacturer, although it is an ATA standard feature.https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/enterprise-performance-savvio-fam/enterprise-performance-15k-hdd/_cross-product/_shared/doc/seagate-fast-format-white-paper-04tp699-1-1701us.pdfhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanced_Format#Advanced_Format_hard_disk_drivesQuote

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 11:54:01 am
content: @ coromonadalixI think we're talking at cross purposes.I don't need to boot from the HDD, I just need to access data.QuoteThat's why I am here...I just want to find a dock that reports sector size the same way the mainboard sees without using a USB dock.Quote from: fzabkar on April 18, 2024, 11:37:00 amDoes the Seagate tool also work with WD drives?

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 12:13:52 pm
content: Quote from: Greybeard on April 18, 2024, 11:54:01 amThe tool is SeaChest Utilities. I don't know if it works with WD's drives, but WD/HGST has Hugo, Niagara and wdckit.https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/50708/~/wdckit-drive-utility-download-and-instructions-for-internal-drivesQuoteNote that an ATA FastFormat is not the same thing as WD's "fast formatter" for its USB drives. The latter reconfigures the bridge firmware whereas the former reconfigures the HDD.See this thread for even more quirky USB bridges:https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/i-have-several-hard-drives-that-work-in-one-pc-but-show-as-uninitialized-in-another-pc.3503743/#post-21181059This "Verbatim USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Desktop Hard Drive 3TB" is enumerated as 2 "virtual" physical disks, 2.2TB (= 2TiB) + 0.8TB. BIOS shows 2 USB devices. The enclosure contains a single 3TB HDD.https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/external-usb3-3tb-drive-shows-2-devices.648875/

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 12:53:26 pm
content: Why does it always have to be as complicated as possible?Are there really no docks that simply pass on the sector size unchanged?

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 01:17:55 pm
content: I would say too many hardware makers, even if they say "compatible" ... you do know it's a big wordTechnology change so fastAs for a bootable Windows 10-11 drive: now you have 3-4 partitions listed .... loll see in disk management, minimum is 3 ...The main called C:\ and other hidden ones for boot and recovery ... and Acer and some other brands hide an recovery partition with an windows re-installation media in it ... you will never see it normally in windows, some partitioning SW will show it ...ex: if you wipe a drive like this, but not destroy all partitions to merge them as one, you'll get some lost space around 600meg for an windows drive converted into a storage one ...

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 06:22:37 pm
content: Quote from: Greybeard on April 18, 2024, 06:46:22 amScreenshots as promised:

author: alm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 07:11:29 pm
content: So it is indeed the enclosure that does the translation. And the problem is that the partition table is in units of sectors, so the partition offsets will be wrong.I'd make sure all partitions are aligned on 4k boundaries (should happen automatically when partitioned on the USB dock). And when you need to access a disk directly, use a method likethisto mount the partitions. I'm pretty sure the method could also be adjusted in the other direction (4k partition table on 512b disk). Alternatively you could use a tool like Testdisk to reconstruct the partition table.Using 4kn disks sounds like the better solution long term. You could also do the research for what USB to SATA bridge ICs do translation and which don't.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 07:42:29 pm
content: As a workaround to this translation problem, you could use the demo version of DMDE:https://dmde.com/DMDE will show your partition with a  identifier, indicating that it was created in a 4Kn environment. In the Partitions tab, just d-click your FS volume, expand the $Root, and then r-click and "recover" your desired files to another drive. The free version will recover up to 4000 files of any size from any one folder per click.

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 08:03:27 pm
content: To be honest, I don't feel very comfortable using disk editors or modifying boot sectors, etc.Quote from: alm on April 18, 2024, 07:11:29 pmThat's why I asked for a tool reformatting the 512e HDD back to 4K.I think I will ask WD support.How can I find out what USB to SATA chipset is used by my oldSharkoon SATA QuickPort XT USB 3.0 dockor the potential new ones?

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2024, 09:49:16 pm
content: Chip: Jmicron JMS567 given on the maker site lollSome reports on some sites, reliability problems and other quirks with this chipset ??if you're in windows : check in device manager the dock should be enumerated .... and on it check its properties / hardware id's / and do a search on its vid / pid informationsmaybe before that you can see it in the taskbar, mine is giving away the information when i have an hdd in iti see asm xxxx when i want to disconnect an hdd from usb port

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 08:34:37 am
content: I've opened the case of mySharkoon SATA QuickPort XT USB 3.0dock and confirmed the Bridge IC:ASMediaASM1051.I found several firmwares on this site:https://www.station-drivers.com/index.php/en/component/remository/Drivers/Asmedia/ASM-105x-115x-215x-(ASMT-xxxx)-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/ASM1051-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/lang,en-gb/https://www.station-drivers.com/index.php/en/component/remository/Drivers/Asmedia/ASM-105x-115x-215x-(ASMT-xxxx)-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/ASM1053-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/lang,en-gb/http://37.187.91.32/index.php/en/component/remository/Drivers/Asmedia/ASM-105x-115x-215x-(ASMT-xxxx)-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/ASM1051-Sata-USB-3.x-controllers/lang,en-gb/But I'm not sure which one could be the correct one.Some named Asmedia ASM-105x(photos show ASM1051) , one is named Asmedia ASM-1053(maybe wrong IC type, shown photo is unreadable)I try to contact the dock maker again to get more info and/or firmware...PS:Original FWAsmedia ASM-105x SATA/USB 3.0 Firmware Version 100824_91_00.Found the "nearly" original Asmedia ASM-105x SATA/USB 3.0 Firmware Version 100824_00_00http://37.187.91.32/index.php/en/component/remository/func-startdown/510/lang,en-gb/PPS:Found the original FWAsmedia ASM-105x SATA/USB 3.0 Firmware Version 100824_91_00:https://www.usbdev.ru/?wpfb_dl=2056And many many others:https://www.usbdev.ru/files/asmedia/asmt2105firmware/

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 03:03:32 pm
content: oh another hardware? mmm i have doubts, normally you have to check your windows device manager where it enumerates, hardware properties ....your station drivers show firmwares links not drivers ... normally theses install by themselvesif you don't have any exclamation marks in device manager, you are okpls do check device manager before installing any gimmick ...

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 04:55:12 pm
content: On linux you can use the hdparm tool to select the logical sector size (if supported by the disk). First check the disk:# hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep 'Sector size:'Logical Sector size: 512 bytes [ Supported: 512 4096 ]Physical Sector size: 4096 bytesThen change to 4k:hdparm --set-sector-size 4096 /dev/sdaRe-partion and re-format.What happened in your case is that the disk is set to 512e, i.e. the disk is emulating 512 byte sectors, and the USB-SATA bridge is emulating 4k sectors on top. Besides some bridge chips always emulating 4k sectors there are also chips only supporting 512 byte sectors (a disk with a logical sector size of 4k wouldn't work).

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 05:44:22 pm
content: Quote from: Greybeard on April 19, 2024, 08:34:37 amThere is also an "E" version of the IC which I believe supports AES hardware encryption.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/ASMedia_ASM1051E_ABA91140A2_T6A_1143.jpgSome of these bridge ICs have internal code which enables them to run as a generic bridge when the external memory (8-pin SPI flash?) is disabled. If yours is one of these, then perhaps the default sector size in generic mode is 512 bytes?Edit:WD's My Books use the same Asmedia bridge.https://goughlui.com/2015/10/25/how-to-remove-wd-hard-drive-from-mybook-enclosure/QuoteYou may need to cut the *HOLD pin as well, as sometimes the IC can still be powered up via this pin (if it is tied to Vcc) when Vcc is cut.

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 06:15:01 pm
content: Just to clarify:I don't use Linux, I use Win7 and Win10.My type of USB bridge is ASM1051 not ASM1051E.How can I read out PID and VID of the device in Win10?I found the PID and VID in device manager:And that's what I read out via flash tool:Just to be sure the "new" firmware" and the found "nearly original" is the proper one.Where can I findProduct stringandManufacturer stringin device manager?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 06:49:25 pm
content: Just in case you don't find any suitable disk tool for Windows, you can put any linux boot CD on a USB stick and boot from it.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 06:57:19 pm
content: https://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:174c-55aaI would suggest that you identify the serial EEPROM/flash and short the DI or DO pins while powering up the enclosure. This will invalidate the external memory and cause the bridge to operate as a generic device until the next power cycle. If the result is what you want, then you could permanently disable the chip.

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 08:35:32 pm
content: Quote from: fzabkar on April 19, 2024, 06:57:19 pmThat's what I found in another (linux related) VID + PID data base:Code:174c ASMedia Technology Inc.07d1 Transcend ESD400 Portable SSD (USB 3.0)1151 ASM1151W1153 ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge2074 ASM1074 High-Speed hub3074 ASM1074 SuperSpeed hub-> 5106 ASM1051 SATA 3Gb/s bridge5136 ASM1053 SATA 3Gb/s bridge51d6 ASM1051W SATA 3Gb/s bridge-> 55aa ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge, ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridgeThe read out PID via flash tool seems to be wrong (55AA indicates ASM1051E) but in reality it is a ASM1051 without E.Does it matter if 55AA or 5106 is used? Should I correct it (5106 resp. ASM1051)?Quote from: fzabkar on April 19, 2024, 06:57:19 pmIt's a serial EEPROM 25LC512:Can shorting SI or SO to GND kill the IC?

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 08:51:44 pm
content: I think these ICs are protected against shorts to ground. I would try shorting SO to ground.

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 09:03:49 pm
content: How did you find out that this will happen?Probably there is much more config data stored in the EEPROM (time out behavior etc.)...

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2024, 10:06:31 pm
content: Quote from: Greybeard on April 19, 2024, 09:03:49 pmMost bridges are designed in this way. It's rare for a bridge to need an external "ROM" for basic functionality.Seehttps://habr.com/ru/companies/ntc-vulkan/articles/485966/QuoteASM1053 datasheet:https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/917641/ASMedia/ASM1053/1

author: Greybeard
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2024, 07:59:10 am
content: Finally it works!4TB HDD recognised as 512 Bytes/sector (new formatted in PC/SATA) attached via USB dock:I used the firmware I found in a german forum:https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/asmedia-aktuelle-externe-gehaeuse-chip-firmware-fuer-8tb.1473501/(download "ASMedia.1051.No.Name.Device.7z" after first post)English translation:https://www-computerbase-de.translate.goog/forum/threads/asmedia-aktuelle-externe-gehaeuse-chip-firmware-fuer-8tb.1473501/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp#post-17358890Direct download firmware 130220.81.F6.02 and how-to (german):https://www.computerbase.de/forum/attachments/asmedia-1051-no-name-device-7z.493140/THANK YOU ALL !!!