USB to SATA adapter recognize disk only when i plug first USB and then SATA

Question

I have

• AXAGO EE25-XA3 USB 3.0 ALINE box USB/SATA adapter

• SanDisk SDSSDHII-480G

When I plug HHD to adapter (SATA port) and then USB cabel to my PC, no disk recognized. Windows disk manager says not initialized and initializing terminates with error.

When I plug empty adapter to PC via USB, the disk manager says empty medium. Then I plug disk in SATA connector (i know, it is not safe...), the disk is connected corectly.

I tried clean the disk, rebuild MBR, removing all partitions, switch to GPT and back to MBR and still with same result.

I have also another same USB/SATA adapter and second disk (320GB, not SSD). Both adapters working properly with the second disk.

Tested on Windows 10

Anyone any ideas?

Thank You

Answer 1

By process of elimination OP has confirmed the issue is with the adapter.

The easiest solution is to purchase a new adapter.

Answer 2

It looks like your USB port doesn't have enough power capacity to power both adapter controller and the SSD at once during initialization/start-up phase. Higher plug-in load usually leads to slower power rise time, and some cheap controllers (or SSDs?) might have certain needs on how fast the power should rise in order to get proper hardware reset. Or initialization of SSD and adpapter IC interfere when weak power is applied.

More, this particular enclosure uses some kind of proprietary non-standard USB cable, which have no official means to be certified for DC drop or SS electricals. So all bets are off.

Check load capacity of your PC's USB port. Use shorter and thicker cable (which you can't, it is proprietary). If another USB 3.0 HDD enclosure works only in USB 2.0 mode, than your PC port is likely suspect.