No Media in Disk Management for new HDD

Alright, this is a long ass story so sit down and I'll try to condense it

I own pic related, an x51 that's about 6 years old. What happens around a computer's 6th birthday? HDD issues! My HDD started failing. I wasn't worried, a buddy of mine is good with hardware and I have basic knowledge. So I bought a new HDD and a SATA->USB cable to clone the data.

Once they arrive, I go to hook up the new drive with the cable and it's not showing up in file explorer, which is a common problem. Just go to disk management and format it right? That's where things get complicated. I go to disk management and it shows the primary HDD as Disk 0, and the new HDD as Disk 1. However, the new HDD is showing as "No Media" as opposed to it's size and state.

Buddy and I are both confused, we check the box for the cable and see that it's not Windows 10 compatible. Not that it should matter, but we get a new one.

New one arrives, same issue. No media. So now we come to the conclusion that it's the new HDD that's out of whack, they probably sent me a dud. File for a return, get a new one. Same issue. No media.

At this point I start scouring the internet for answers, updating every firmware, doing every trick I can possibly do to make it read the new HDD, and then I saw a post from a guy on reddit a couple years ago who had an issue with his SATA dock, he was getting the No Media error, but when he plugged the HDD into his computer's internal bay it worked just fine. So I thought of what I could do with this info. The new drive I have doesn't have Windows on it so the computer wouldn't be able to boot, then I remembered that I made a boot/installation drive about a year ago.

I popped out the old drive and inputted the new one, plugged in the boot/installation drive and fired her up. Everything went smoothly, installed Windows 10, the drive is a self sufficient drive now.

But now when I go to plug in the old HDD, the failing one, I still get the No Media error. And vice versa

Attached: Alienware-X51-Gaming-PC-3.jpg (900x900, 47K)

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Plug in a USB stick with a Linux live distro and boot on it to bypass Windows disk management garbage

so you can actually see what I'm getting. Disk 0 is the new HDD, which is what the computer is currently running on. It's unable to read the old HDD, and vice versa.

Attached: Screenshot (1).png (1920x1080, 619K)

I don't have another flash drive with the capacity to hold a boot/install. Nor do I know how to run Linux.

Plug old HDD back inside the case.
Clone it to an external HDD.
Put new HDD inside the case.
Clone the external HDD to the new HDD.

>Nor do I know how to run Linux.
they have live gparted isos, it boots directly to that, nothing else required gparted.org/livecd.php alternatively (please dont) get some god awful parition manager on windows, format, assign drive letter, clone it over.

problem is, I cant clone it if windows won't read it.

Figure it out yourself, this isn't a goddamn help desk.

I've been trying for about a week, which is why i'm coming to a board to ask what other people think of the issue to get an outsider's perspective or maybe a bit of knowledge I didn't previously know. This is how any successful strategy goes man.

Or maybe you should have used your basic """""knowledge""""" in hardware 6 years ago and not bought an Alienware

Have you tried installing Linux on a USB and running it the old HDD? Perhaps windows compatibility is an issue. I'd use Ubuntu unless you are already a pro in another distribution.

>I don't have another flash drive with the capacity to hold a boot/install. Nor do I know how to run Linux.
You don't have or can't get a 2GB usb drive? What country are you in?

What kind of USB to SATA adapter are you using? Does it have a separate power brick? Because if it doesn't, that means it's only for laptop drives and it isn't able to supply all the voltages required to spin up a desktop HDD.

You can't use usb cables for 3.5" drives, usb is not powerful enough. Why do you even need that, is there no additional sata slots on the board? Hook the one from the dvd with old hdd just laying on the table.

the cd drive doesn't use sata. probably to accommodate for space, they pulled all sorts of loopholes to get this thing to be as small as it is. 6 years ago this pc was an anomaly

>the cd drive doesn't use sata
How the fuck is it connected then? Take both drives to your friend and copy files from his pc.

>How the fuck is it connected then?
I'm actually curious too

you could try booting into an earlier windows os, like install and use 7 you dont need `10.

the pic I took of it's too fuckin large in file size for some dumb reason. but it's like a mini sata pretty much that has an inch and a half of cable before it plugs into the motherboard

just wanted to say i have an x51 as well, and right around this time (mid-October) 2016 the Seagate barracuda 1TB HDD it came with started to fail.

can confirm, it is some mini sata shit, i've only seen it elsewhere in laptop optical drives

How did you clone the hdd? I'm assuming it's a hardware issue with the usb ports, and that's odd because that's the only way to clone a drive on the x51 really since it only has one SATA port.

I resorted to reinstalling all my programs apps and games onto the new hdd and then taking the important files, copying them to a flash drive, and importing them to the new hdd by hand. Since there's no way to connect the two seemingly.

how'd that toaster even last 6 years?
you live somewhere cold?

Just buy an offline cloner FFS
amazon.com/WAVLINK-Dual-Bay-Docking-Station-Functions/dp/B018FTE87S/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1540199503&sr=8-3