What is this?

Blackhawk47 · 21 Apr 2015 at 18:44

This drive came out of a western digital passport. Struggling to get it to work and it's probably beyond fixing but I've never seen a HDD with a built in usb b interface and no sata interface.

I was planning to use it as a spare drive in my desktop but when plugging it in to my PC via the usb it doesn't even show up in my computer/disk management.

Borealis · 21 Apr 2015 at 19:39

It's pretty much a standard 2.5" hdd. Rather than having the sata connection, it's been hardwired with a usb controller/interface card.

I've never taken a passport drive apart, so I can't tell you what the problem is. If it's getting power, then it could be that the USB interface board has a problem.

I went for an interview a while back with a data recovery company (didn't get the job). They told me that 99% of HDD failures were down to the logic boards failing, rather than a direct mechanical failure.

ED209 · 21 Apr 2015 at 20:05

I have a old passport drive that's getting old and starting to fail.

wonder if mine is the same

Borealis · 21 Apr 2015 at 21:14

Could be. The actual disks are very well engineered and pretty solid. Unless a bearing fails, it's usually a control system failure that kills your disk. The disk is just storing the data. The logic board and firmware control how the data is input/output.

Of course, it could be the sort of control failure where the read/write head plows into the platters!