4TB HDD GPT Formatted, working esata, not working USB

[TekPaul]

Hey Guys

Motherboard ASUS P5Q
HDD Toshiba x300 4TB
CADDY IT-CEO USB3 / eSata
Windows 10 Pro

The motherboard is not actually capable of USB3, only USB2
eSata is working just fine
USB ports used are all working just fine with many other devices.


Brand new Toshiba x300 4TB HDD. I have an external USB 3 Caddy that has both USB and eSata. My first use of this was using the eSata connection, successfully initialised as a GPT Disk and formatted to NTFS, I copied 150GB to it so far no problem.

I shut down the PC and powered off the drive then removed eSata cable, rebooted. Once booted i plugged in the USB 3 cable and expected to see the drive appear in the drive list but it did not. In Disk Management the drive shows as 16384.00GB (16TB???) Healthy (GPT Protective Partition).

If I right click the drive in Disk Management all options other than help is greyed out so no help there.

Using EaseUS Partition Master the drive shows as MBR (unformatted) 3.65TB Primary.

So, i safely remove/eject the drive showing as Eject USB-SATA Bridge(system tray), reboot and plug in again with eSata, the drive now shows up correctly as the 4tb working GPT NTFS Drive.

I need to use this as a USB Drive, somehow thats not possible.

What can be done to make windows recognise this disk using USB, Ive searched and found many articles talking about making a large drive into 2 x 2TB partitions but i want to keep it as a 4TB GPT. My motherboard is not uefi capable, is this part of the problem? Also, there should not be a problem using USB3 caddy in the motherborard thats only capable of USB2 right?

Any knowledge of the GPT Protective Partition or the cause of it to work eSata and not USB would be very helpfull. Thanks

 

[Comp Cmndo]

USB 2.0 may not be providing enough power for your USB/caddy drive. You might need this cable.
USB 3.0 A Male to Micro USB 3 Y cable with extra USB Power

 

[bassfisher6522]

A couple of red flags for me. Your mobo is supported for windows 8.1 and below...so it could be a windows 10 driver issue. Or it could be the fact that there is a HDD size limit to that old mobo. You would need to verify that with your mobo manual. I know my old Asus mobo (M4N78 Pro) only supports up to 2 TB size HDD's.

 

[Grizzly]

Comp Cmndo is absolutely right. If your external caddy does not have its own power supply, the USB 2 will not work as it can only provide a max. current of 500mA while USB3 can do 900mA. An adapter as comp cmndo showed is needed to run the drive on a usb2 port. Heck, even my Samsung SSD I cannot run without an additional power source on a USB2 port. Therein lies your problem. eSata can provide enough current to run your caddy, USB2 does not....

 

[TekPaul]

USB 2.0 may not be providing enough power for your USB/caddy drive. You might need this cable.
USB 3.0 A Male to Micro USB 3 Y cable with extra USB Power

Thanks, I should have said it is a powered Caddy, using mains power cord, The USB 3 cable is very fat and new, it does not have a 2nd usb connector on the pc end although I didnt think being a USB3 cable it should need it.

 

[TekPaul]

Comp Cmndo is absolutely right. If your external caddy does not have its own power supply, the USB 2 will not work as it can only provide a max. current of 500mA while USB3 can do 900mA. An adapter as comp cmndo showed is needed to run the drive on a usb2 port. Heck, even my Samsung SSD I cannot run without an additional power source on a USB2 port. Therein lies your problem. eSata can provide enough current to run your caddy, USB2 does not....

Hi Thanks, The Caddy is a powered one, by mains power. The USB3 Cable is very fat and new, I think it should be enough for the job of data while the mains power keeps the HDD going.

 

[TekPaul]

A couple of red flags for me. Your mobo is supported for windows 8.1 and below...so it could be a windows 10 driver issue. Or it could be the fact that there is a HDD size limit to that old mobo. You would need to verify that with your mobo manual. I know my old Asus mobo (M4N78 Pro) only supports up to 2 TB size HDD's.

Hi thanks for the response, Ive looked into it any dont have a eral answer but u may be right about drivers, as ive said its a powered drive anyway, so mobo compatability could be whats stopping it from being recognised USB2, Ive now ordered a USB3 pcie card to see if that makes any difference. it did get recognised through eSata as the full 3.6TB so i hope if the USB driver that installs for the pcie will be enough. If not then not sure whats next, ill have to try it on another pc see if theres any difference, could even be the caddy at fault.

Cheers