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I have a SATA DVD drive (pulled from an old computer) that I want to use with my laptop over USB. I have a USb-SATA hard drive adapter that I'm trying to use to make this work. When I plugged the drive into the USB-SATA adapter and try to use it, the following happens:

  • I push the button to open the tray, it opens and I put a disc in, I push the button to close the tray
  • The drive tray closes and the green activity light on the DVD drive starts blinking
    • I can feel a slight vibration from the drive, but I don't think the disc is spinning at full speed
  • After about 30s, the activity light stops blinking and goes dim

At no point during the above process is the disc recognized in Windows. Device manager has the USB-SATA adapter listed as a "JMicron SCSI Disc Device".

Parts involved:

Why wouldn't this work? From reading online, it seems that this could be a power supply issue over USB, but I don't think this is the case. The USB-SATA adapter is connected via a powered USB hub. Could it be the way that the adapter is recognised in Windows?

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    "it seems that this could be a power supply issue over USB, but I don't think this is the case." -- Your thinking is wrong. You need to provide +5VDC and +12VDC (using an external power supply) to that optical drive.
    – sawdust
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 0:33
  • Wait, I'm confused... Do you mean that the SATA-USB adapter doesn't provide all of the voltages required by the DVD drive?
    – ifconfig
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 1:03
  • @Moab I'm not sure what you mean by "Why are you using the optical drive?"
    – ifconfig
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 1:04
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    "Do you mean that the SATA-USB adapter doesn't provide all of the voltages required by the DVD drive?" -- Yes.
    – sawdust
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 1:52
  • 1
    +1 for supplying full information.
    – Ale..chenski
    Commented Oct 22, 2020 at 2:39

1 Answer 1

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The desktop-size DVD Writers 5.25" formfactor are power-hungry and usually need both 12V and 5V power sources. The Sabrent enclosure is for 2.5" drives, which only uses +5V power.

To use your old HP drive, you need to find a USB-to-SATA enclosure designed for 5.25" formfactor. It usually takes an external 12V power to operate.

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    You probably mean 5.25" inch?
    – James P.
    Commented Aug 6, 2022 at 17:04
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    @JamesP., Thanks for the correction. Edited in.
    – Ale..chenski
    Commented Aug 6, 2022 at 21:37
  • The key distinction here is between "desktop" devices (3.5 inch HDDs, 5.25 inch optical drives etc) which tend to need both 5V and 12V and "laptop" devices (2.5 inch HDDs, SSDs, slimline optical drives) which only need 5V.
    – plugwash
    Commented Oct 9, 2023 at 21:41

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