Hardware PS3 not reading external HDD (FAT 32 or NTFS)

[neoncelery]

Hey guys so i have two perfectly good working 2.5 HDDs, both 60GB, one is in FAT 32 format and the other is in NTFS format. When I plug them into my computer with my USB to SATA adapter cable it reads the HDDs perfectly but when i plug either of them to my PS3 it does not detect either of them. My hardrives aren't broken, the cable is brand new too so why isn't my PS3 reading or even detecting either of my hardrives? my PS3 is CFW and all that. Also my adapter cable does have two lights that indicate when its connected/when its being tampered with. When i plug it in to my PS3 both of these lights turn on and i can feel the disc spinning inside the HDDs so that shows that its providing enough power for my HDDs. Also when i connect the USB to the PS3 the swirly clock like icon pops up on the top right corner of my screen so that also shows my USB ports aren't broken its clearly detecting something, I have also used them with flashdrives so its clearly not broken. Sorry for the long explanation but any ideas? thank youim at a lost here.

 

[rs1n]

What are the specs of your 2.5" drives? Given that they are 60GB, I wonder if they are from a period where the power usage might be slightly higher than typical 2.5" drives of today. So when you plug your drive into your computer using the adapter, the adapter might be able to provide sufficient power to the drive. This would definitely be the case if the adapter was, say, USB3. On the PS3, the USB ports are USB2 (so 900mA for USB3 vs 500mA for USB2).

Check the datasheet of your drives -- they usually specify what the power draw is during each state (read/write/idle/spinup). Note that P=V*I (power = voltage x current). USB2 is 5V, so just take the power value (in watts) and divide by 5 to get the value for the current draw. If it exceeds 0.5A (500mA) then that would indicate the problem is power related.

Generally speaking, if you are using an external drive that came with its own enclosure, such drives typically get sufficient power from the USB ports (or they would otherwise have their own power adapter). If you just took some old laptop drive and bought a separate HDD enclosure (that does not have its own power adapter), then there is a possibility that there is not sufficient power to the drive through the third-party enclosure since laptop drives can sometimes exceed the 500mA limit from USB ports.