HGST He10 Incompatible with Most Asus Motherboards

Pixel Eater

Limp Gawd
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Oct 25, 2006
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Just picked up a pair of He10 drives. I've been really looking forward to owning HGSTs since I heard about them. I'm finding they just don't work with my 2012 or 2013 Asus motherboards. The folks at Fry's Electronics even tested them on a 2015 one and confirmed with me that it does not even come up in the BIOS, or even spin up with power connected. But we know the drive isn't dead because the one thing it was actually compatible with? A silly USB dock. Which was at least over a year old.

I'm not sure what my options are besides getting a Sata III controller. Can anyone think of any other ideas, and can anyone recommend a controller that actually has good Windows 10 compatibility as well as a high likelihood of actually accepting this bleeding edge drive? I wonder why it's so picky.

Edit: It turned out to be a drive using the Sata 3.3 power standard. They have versions of this drive that don't use that. The solution is either a molex to Sata power adapter or exchanging the drive for the version without the new feature.
 
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Wtf? Since when do 3-4 year old motherboards = "Most"?

Try a BIOS update? List the complete system specs for all to help troubleshoot? Try troubleshooting with someone a little more versed in tech than some guy working at Fry's basing his opinion on the release year of the mobo used for testing?

FFS @ the lack of common sense in the OP...
 
There shouldn't be a hardware compatibility issues, but there may be a BIOS issue. If it doesn't even spin up, there may be some other problem.

Are you sure you didn't get the SAS versions rather than the SATA version?
 
As I said, we also tried (and tried and tried) a 2015 mobo in what was actually a liquid cooled high end gaming build they had on display. Looks the same as their current lineup. A couple of guys from the store were surprisingly knowledgeable and agree, this is weird. I forgot to mention I already tried BIOS updates. SATA driver can't matter until I get this thing to show up in the BIOS. Or, should I track down a good PCI 2.0 Sata controller?
 
As I said, we also tried (and tried and tried) a 2015 mobo in what was actually a liquid cooled high end gaming build they had on display. Looks the same as their current lineup. A couple of guys from the store were surprisingly knowledgeable and agree, this is weird. I forgot to mention I already tried BIOS updates. SATA driver can't matter until I get this thing to show up in the BIOS. Or, should I track down a good PCI 2.0 Sata controller?

Is is the SATA or SAS version of the drive? Has anything detected it except the one USB dock? If several different motherboards from different manufacturers don't detect the drive, then it's very unlikely a separate SATA controller would, so I wouldn't waste your time or money on that route. Have you contacted HGST? I didn't find any issues during a brief Google search, so maybe you got some bad drives?
 
It is the Sata version, and actually it's jumperless. So far I've only had the chance to try it with Asus motherboards, which to be clear I tried the 6gb/s and 3gb/s ports both. So far it's been a Vantec dock that actually managed to pull it up under Disk Management. HGST was surprisingly dismissive and had no problem telling me to call Asus, and no suggestions of what to do.
 
Edit: dang, that's a SAS controller

I was calmly explaining to HGST that they should seriously consider hosting a recommended list of controllers, in the event that I'm right about compatibility being a long shot on a variety of older boards. If Nintendo can recommend SD cards and Hard Drives, I feel HGST would not be wrong to do the testing and offer some assistance.
 
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Wrong. HGST isn't going to release a drive that isn't supported somehow.

The new LSI controllers report compatibility.

http://www.avagotech.com/products/storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9361-8i#documentation

WTF do you mean "Wrong"? I said it you tried a bunch of different motherboards (which implies a bunch of different SATA controller versions and BIOS versions), then trying a cheap add-on SATA controller probably isn't going to help, since it's essentially the same thing.

The HGST page only lists compatible SAS controllers, not pure SATA controllers for that drive model.

The link YOU provided is for a SAS controller, not a SATA controller.

I've been doing this a while, and the only time I've seen anything like what you were describing was when someone was trying to use a SAS drive on a SATA-only motherboard.
 
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Oh man, I didn't notice it was SAS, or the price.... well I guess I'll be digging for compatibility lists if anyone even includes them on new enough controllers. To be clear, I absolutely have not purchased SAS drives.
 
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Oh man, I didn't notice it was SAS, or the price.... well I guess I'll be digging for compatibility lists if anyone even includes them on new enough controllers. To be clear, I absolutely have not purchases SAS drives.

What is the model number on your drive?
 
HGST 0F27452
From HGST's page here: https://www.hgst.com/products/hard-drives/ultrastar-he10 Check the PN selector tab to see the data.

  • New Feature Available: Power Disable Pin (Pin3) is a new feature in the SATA 3.3 industry standard specification (published in February 2016). If you have a new chassis or system that supports this feature, you may want to use the part numbers below which support this feature. If you don't need this feature or don't know, we recommend selecting drives from the table above. To learn more about this new feature, read our Power Disable Feature technology brief. Please note, if you deploy a SATA HDD from the table below into a legacy chassis or enclosure, the drive may not spin up.
Looks like you need a VERY new SATA controller to support that drive. One of the other versions should work.
 
If it is, in fact, that, then per the PDF:

There is a simple fix if you find yourself in a situation where an Ultrastar SATA HDD is not spinning up. By using a simple “Molex to SATA” power connector (Figure 1) to supply power to the HDD, you can usually eliminate the problem. Changing the power connector effectively removes power from P3 (Pin 3) and allows the drive to spin up normally.
 
If it is, in fact, that, then per the PDF:

I think you could also just snip the grey or orange wire (opposite the yellow). That's the 3.3V signal which it looks like is the one that causes the problem. The drive should only pull power from the +12V and +5V lines.
 
Woah! I'll let Fry's know that might not have been the best model to put out on the shelf then. Thank you for finding this info. Let me dig around, I think I have one of those converters.
 
It worked!



...though someone in another chat is asking if I've ever heard the saying "Molex to SATA, lose all your data"?

Ahaha.. ha... wonder if they have a point.
 
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It worked!



...though someone in another chat is asking if I've ever heard the saying "Molex to SATA, lose all your data"?

Ahaha.. ha... wonder if they have a point.

Never heard that one before...

Glad you got it working though.
 
Never heard that one before...
Quick look around Google tells me this is not an ideal long term solution. I will probably trade it out!

Tp9RKPV.jpg
 
Quick look around Google tells me this is not an ideal long term solution. I will probably trade it out!
Alternately, you could cut the 3.3V wire from the SATA power connector. (assuming you have a modular power supply). That removes the unnecessary signal causing the problem, and still provides the drive with the +5V and +12V power it actually uses to operate.

There's nothing electrically wrong with a SATA to MOLEX adapter that makes them inherently risky. The only problem you'll see is that most adapters of that type are cheaply made, and like any other cheap power adapter, they can fail. A good quality one will never have this type of issue.
 
Quick look around Google tells me this is not an ideal long term solution. I will probably trade it out!

I probably have used a hundred of these at work (some for more than 1 decade) with no problems at all. I am not even remotely worried.

Edit: Since I build machines at work most of these were included with the motherboard accessories with the rest included with a hard drive ( I have purchased hundreds of drives).

Alternately, you could cut the 3.3V wire from the SATA power connector.

Cut the orange wire that provides SATA power.
 
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Looking back into the issue of molex to sata adapters catching fire, I finally found the answer seems to come down to whether they were made in a hasty method where the plastic is molded around the wires, versus methods that properly crimp each wire. Jump to 3 minutes.



ZVjqsAA.png
 
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I bought 4 x He10 HGST SATA drives, and I only have a laptop and some USB 3.0 docks. Strangely two of the drives works fine, gets detected using dock or even in the G-Tech enclosure and currently running on RAID0. But the other two drives are not getting detected and showing up as 0 MB in disk management. The drive powers up fine, I can feel the vibration and the usual clicks of powering up, but then nothing. Both of them are doing the same. I am wondering if this is because the power disable feature. It is strange that two of them works and two does not. I am going to put them in the G-Tech usb enclosure and will see if they work after I backup the RAID0. Can anyone experienced this please advise me what to do and how to get them working properly.

Many thanks everyone, much appreciated.
 
I bought 4 x He10 HGST SATA drives, and I only have a laptop and some USB 3.0 docks. Strangely two of the drives works fine, gets detected using dock or even in the G-Tech enclosure and currently running on RAID0. But the other two drives are not getting detected and showing up as 0 MB in disk management. The drive powers up fine, I can feel the vibration and the usual clicks of powering up, but then nothing. Both of them are doing the same. I am wondering if this is because the power disable feature. It is strange that two of them works and two does not. I am going to put them in the G-Tech usb enclosure and will see if they work after I backup the RAID0. Can anyone experienced this please advise me what to do and how to get them working properly.

Many thanks everyone, much appreciated.

If the drive spins up, it's not the Pin-3 issue. Mine would not spin up until I used the Molex-to-SATA adapter. If you're positive that your HD is spinning up, look elsewhere (eg. data cable, controller, OS, possibly even bad HD). - mBrane
 
I am using an He10 with an Asus Maximus VIII Hero.
The only thing it needed was an older SATA adapter to make it power up.
 
it is the same thing that the white label drives in the easy stores have. you just need to remove the 3.3v line from the power plug or the drive you can also put some kapton tape over the 3 last pin closest to the sata data connector.
 
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