Arch Linux

dave11101

Member

Registered: 2026-08-26

Posts: 1

boot issues with a cheap external enclosure

So, I bought a wd 6tb drive and one of these maiwo enclosures.

https://www.newegg.com/maiwo-4-bay-sata … A-_-101932

to use it as backup, no big deal. it works fine. added it to fstab, it auto mounts. great.

i decided that there is no reason for it to be powered on oustide of the once a week backups that i wanted to do, so i pull the power out of it, usb still plugged in, the pc boots as normal until the grub menu, then black screen.

plug the power back into the enclosure and it boots fine.

4 fucking hours later i finally decide to pull the usb out of it while its powered off and... holy shit the pc boots fine. hope this helps someone in the future the price you pay for cheap shit. the fucking thing doesnt even have a model number on newegg. its just listed as a 4 Bay SATA Hard Drive Enclosure.

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 907

Re: boot issues with a cheap external enclosure

its probably still partially working when plugged into usb with no power connected, when the machine is booted up with the unit disconnected run

dmesg -w

and then plug the unit in via usb without it being powered and see what happens, then try the same thing with it powered.