I have a WD30EFRX I’d like to use with a normal PC but I can’t make it visible (and formattable) in any way. I tried with Diskpart, Computer Management and also GParted with no luck. The HD remains silent and not detected (both via internal sata connector and external sabrent usb adapter).
Everything would make me think the hd is broken but… magically if I insert it into my qnap nas, it’s detected immediately and raid 1 rebuild is performed.
Is there something I can’t catch? Why my wd red works ONLY inside the qnap?
It appears that your drive may be configured to Power Up In Standby (PUIS). Your NAS knows how to spin it up, but Windows does not. You can disable PUIS with HDAT2 or hdparm.
I suspect the disk may be damaged as I have had one such WD30EFRX but after 23,000 hours I pulled it out of service as it was running warmer than I like.
The QNAP may be supplying power and handling the WD Red’s spin-up differently from the PC or USB adapter, so I’d first check whether the drive actually spins up in the PC and whether it appears in the BIOS/UEFI storage list, not just Windows. Also make sure the PC is using a proper SATA power connector and try another PSU power lead and SATA port. If the drive is completely absent from BIOS but works immediately in the QNAP, this points more toward a power, SATA compatibility, or drive firmware issue than a Windows formatting problem. Once the BIOS sees it, Windows 11 should normally be able to initialize and format it.
