If you are planning to work with USB External Hard Drives

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A lot of customers asking us every day about is there a way to work with external USB drives using PC-3000.

In this article we briefly review how to connect and work with USB External Hard Drives.

There are different models of USB External Hard Drives from different vendors:
WD
Toshiba
Seagate
Samsung

1) Dealing with WD USB External drives.

A) USB Connection. If the drive is working good we can handle it using the integrated USB adapter.

B) The second method deals with compatible SATA PCB change. You will need to change the USB PCB to SATA PCB in according to the list of compatible boards. This list is provided here. Please note that ROM chip should be moved from USB PCB to SATA PCB.

C) SATA adapter soldering to USB PCB. In this article from our official blog you can see the instructions.

D) The last method is slow but also efficient to get access to user and service area. If all of the previous methods don’t work or you don’t want to follow them. In this method it’s suggested to use a special adapter WD 2.5”. Such adapter is already included into the PC-3000 Kit.
This article will help to understand how to connect an adapter to External USB Drive.

2) Dealing with Toshiba USB External Drives.

A) It’s possible to use the SATA adapter soldered to USB PCB.
The procedure for SATA soldering in Toshiba drives is the same like for WD: unsolder 4 capacitors between USB bridge and MCU, and solder the SATA port there. The usage of PC-Toshiba terminal adapter is necessary, that’s the only difference between WD and Toshiba handling.

B) It’s also possible to use the compatible SATA PCB.

3) Dealing with Seagate USB External Drives.

There is no necessity to use any additional USB adapter for Seagate drives because all USB Seagate enclosures have USB-SATA adapter inside. Just detach the adapter and work with the drive like a common SATA.

4) Dealing with Samsung USB External Drives.

A) It’s possible to use the SATA adapter soldered to USB PCB.
The procedure is described in this article.

B) It’s also possible to use the compatible SATA PCB.

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7 Responses to If you are planning to work with USB External Hard Drives

  1. FYI…
    1) “D” –> Link is bad.

  2. Jared Palmer says:

    Actually there are SATA PCBs for most Toshiba USB drives that do work. We’ve been keeping a list of them here: https://www.data-medics.com/forum/toshiba-usb-to-sata-guide-t1305.html

    So soldering in a SATA connection isn’t usually necessary. Just transferring the IC602 is all that’s required in most cases.

  3. How do you use the integrated USB adapter for WD drives? When you start the software, it only gives options to read from data and pata drives.

    • ACELab team says:

      Data and Service Area can be readable if you start WDС Marvell USB/COM Utility. There is a separate USB port available for selection in PC-3000 Portable 3 starting dialog as well.

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