External Hard Drive Testing New Format

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  1. Have the Advanced Testing staff or key holder get you the following:
  • External H.D. Testing Kit, which contains:
  • Hard Drives (formatted, partitioned, & with files on them),
  • Power Adapters.
  1. Match the power adapters with the external hard drive enclosures by looking at the connector, voltage and amps.(There may be matched hard drive enclosures in marked box from the Tardis.) Match volts & amps exactly.

Do NOT use a power adapter with less amps than the enclosure requires, you will get false a negative on the enclosure, either because it will not turn on at all, or because it will, but the drive will not be recognized. Using a power adapter with the same volts but higher amps is a bad idea because this may send too many volts into the enclosure, depending both on if the enclosure requires a "regulated" power adapter, and whether or not the power adapter is "regulated".

  1. NEVER, under ANY circumstances, connect a donor's hard drive to a computer. Accessing donor data is a violation of FreeGeek's Data Security Policy.
STEPS NOTES AND DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS
Plug it in and see if it gets power

If not, try 1 or 2 more power adapters. If that doesn't work, remove the hard drive, and recycle the enclosure.

Open the enclosure and remove the hard drive

Immediately give the hard drive to a key holder to lock it up. (If there is no-one around then put it in the incoming hard drive box in Pre-build).

Assemble the enclosure for testing
  • Connect IDE ribbon cable or SATA cable to Advanced Testing Hard Drive.
  • Connect FireWire Cable, Mini FireWire and or USB Cable to the enclosure and the External HD Testing Computer. (Can't test External Serial ATA yet).
If it mounts and you are able to open the files on the drive

(If you don't see it on desktop go to Places-> Computer and double-click on the icon) ||

  • Remove the test drive.
  • Fill out "Tested By" sticker - write whether it is SATA or IDE.
  • Put the enclosure in the Store Box.
If it does not mount
  • Try mounting it in command line if you know how.
If it still won't mount
  • Remove the test drive and recycle the enclosure.