Move HDD from USB2 to USB3 enclosure, Windows sees drive but not files

I have 3 external 2TB HDDs, each in their own USB2 enclosure (Dynamode), used as part of my archiving arrangement. I've used those enclosures for 3 or 4 years with no problems. I decided to move to USB3 for performance improvement. So to see what the real world improvement was I bought the USB3 version of the enclosure and moved the HDD to it. All straightforward.

When powered it all up my PC could see the drive, but not the label nor any data, it said it need formatting. Looking in Disk Management it showed the drive as having a small partition, around 380GB, the remainder of the space was unallocated. Rechecking everything, and knowing I could readily recreate the contents, I extended the partition, reformatted the drive and copied everything to it from alternative backups. The real world improvement I am seeing is a 60% reduction in copy times. That'll do me.

I'm not particularly concerned about the incident but I am curious as to what might have caused this oddity.

Any thoughts?

Some enclosures encrypt the data. Maybe it is the case.
When you moved the disk from one enclosure to the other, there is no encryption key on the new or it is different.

tpriest said:

I have 3 external 2TB HDDs, each in their own USB2 enclosure (Dynamode), used as part of my archiving arrangement. I've used those enclosures for 3 or 4 years with no problems. I decided to move to USB3 for performance improvement. So to see what the real world improvement was I bought the USB3 version of the enclosure and moved the HDD to it. All straightforward.

When powered it all up my PC could see the drive, but not the label nor any data, it said it need formatting. Looking in Disk Management it showed the drive as having a small partition, around 380GB, the remainder of the space was unallocated. Rechecking everything, and knowing I could readily recreate the contents, I extended the partition, reformatted the drive and copied everything to it from alternative backups. The real world improvement I am seeing is a 60% reduction in copy times. That'll do me.

I'm not particularly concerned about the incident but I am curious as to what might have caused this oddity.

Any thoughts?

You didn't say if these drives are 3.5" or 2.5" If the former, then you need to supply 12V using a power wart for the USB 3 enclosure just as you did for the USB 2 enclosure.

Hi, thanks for the replies.

There's no encryption either with the old enclosures or the new ones. They're 3.5" drives and both old and new are powered by external power supplies, not using USB power.

However, whatever the problem was it occurred the following day with one of my USB2 external drives. Again I had the contents elsewhere so after setting the drive up correctly I reinstated the contents.

I then did various Malware and similar checks, just in case.

Whatever happened I've no idea. All the drives are now up and running and performing as they should.

tpriest said:

Hi, thanks for the replies.

There's no encryption either with the old enclosures or the new ones. They're 3.5" drives and both old and new are powered by external power supplies, not using USB power.

However, whatever the problem was it occurred the following day with one of my USB2 external drives. Again I had the contents elsewhere so after setting the drive up correctly I reinstated the contents.

I then did various Malware and similar checks, just in case.

Whatever happened I've no idea. All the drives are now up and running and performing as they should.

Maybe when you first moved the drives, they weren't connected properly. That has happened to me.

It is just possible that in changing just 1 (of 3) external drives from a USB2 enclosure to USB3 enclosure I disturbed connections.

Whatever they've all been working fine for several days now so hopefully the gremlin has departed.