Problem with JMicron SATA controller inside 2x 3.5" HD enclosure - JBOD
 

I bought the IcyBox 2x 3.5" SATA to USB enclosure and Arch does not detect 2nd drive. This enclosure supports SATA II hard disks with only JBOD.
dmesg gives this:
lsusb
I don't know how to get access to the second drive. It's on and works if swaped with the 1st one.
As I know JMicron was or still is troublesome for Linux users.

I suspect a problem with SATA II incompatibility between these two hard drives.
The manual said that in the rare circumstances there is a requirement to downgrade SATA II hard drives to operate in SATA (150) mode. In both cases I have to use DOS applications, but I cannot get access to these hard drives when they are inside enclosure.
Can someone share some experience about enclosures? Is it the true reaction of the confused SATA controller to disable the second hard drive by default when such incompatibility occurs?
As you can see lsusb displays this usb connection named by its controller not by the mounted hard drive itself in this case Samsung or Hitachi one.

Just dismantle the enclosure. What is so hard to do that. Using a DOS utility is not hard. What will be hard is using Windows because Windows requires an installation.

If anyone's still around here, I have the same kind of problem with another variety of JMicron controller (USB to ATA/ATAPI, product id 2329 I think). It keeps on disconnecting and reconnecting with the next available device number.

In my case it does so even if not connected over USB (it's an adapter for USB slave mode on a mobile device). So I really think this has to do with the controller/driver combination itself and not what's attached to it (I'm using my device with the original hard drive).

There's plenty of reports of diverse faults about these JMicron controllers, maybe because they're a standard or maybe because they're badly supported by linux. I haven't heard of specific drivers yet, but I think I'm going to investigate in that direction.

If anyone has any clue, they're welcome.

I came to terms with JMicron controller is faulty or limited by design, will not support two different hard drives at once, so second space in rack is just a drawer for the hard drive.
I experience that my the oldest Samsung hard drive disconnects after about 10min of use, so I have to mount it again.

Actually I've been misled regarding this problem.

I eventually found out that this controller's purpose was to connect the hard drive on my device to the system over USB. The fact that it will keep on disconnecting and reconnecting seems to be related with the power saving functions. However, it reconnects correctly every time and I have access to its contents normally.

So, I must have been a bit quick in thinking my problem came from there. Sorry for the disturbance. Thanks a lot for your reply.

By the way, investigating on the JMicron controller I found a bug report that explained it would reset if tested for SMART capabilities. This has been fixed in recent versions of libatasmart, but there was a time (around the release of Ubuntu Karmic I think) when those controllers wouldn't work without a bit of hacking.

For more info see:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/387161

But maybe this has nothing to do with your problem.

Have a nice day, thanks again.