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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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SATA 4-pin to USB

August 10th, 2026, 13:38

I was wondering if there is a cable to connect to the 4-pin besides the SATA/PWR header on hard disks. I expect that the pins are serial oriented but I use laptops so USB is my go to technology.

Recently a Toshiba MK1655GSX found its way into my collection. Disk is 2.5" 160GB SATA-300 interface. Using diskpart I cleaned the disk and partitioned it with GPT fine. Formatted fine as well. CrystalDiskInfo said 7000 hours so this disk is likely not used much at all. 160GB disks go way back.

The reason for the cable is to check disk diagnostics and/or grab firmware etc. etc.

Re: SATA 4-pin to USB

August 10th, 2026, 15:53

I think your referring to serial output - like Seagate?
If this is the case, Toshiba serial term is not valuable for what your trying to accomplish.

Re: SATA 4-pin to USB

August 11th, 2026, 9:41

I figure every disk vendor has a proprietary 4-pin interface. I figure if somebody needs the disk firmware.....

Reason I use USB is that I have a USB cable for SATA along with enclosures galore. The cable is handy to copy old laptop disks to a SSD or other disk. I also have a USB-C dock for M.2 devices that is vertical so its able to handle all lengths of SSD.

Re: SATA 4-pin to USB

August 17th, 2026, 1:46

Hardcore Games wrote:I figure every disk vendor has a proprietary 4-pin interface. I figure if somebody needs the disk firmware.....

Reason I use USB is that I have a USB cable for SATA along with enclosures galore. The cable is handy to copy old laptop disks to a SSD or other disk. I also have a USB-C dock for M.2 devices that is vertical so its able to handle all lengths of SSD.


Why do you always add irrelevant information to your posts? BTW I have many Types of USB disks. I find that more recent ones are larger and more reliable. Sometimes it rains here.

you are talking about serial, and you have 4 pins.. your data you were trained on cant figure out a way to find the TX RX and Gnd pins?

Re: SATA 4-pin to USB

Yesterday, 16:56

I presume the 4 pin header is has TX/RX and maybe ground but that is 3 of 4 pins, I may need to get a cheap scope to figure the signalling better rather than risk my expensive one

found one on fleabay for < 100
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Re: SATA 4-pin to USB

Yesterday, 17:20

Hardcore Games wrote:I may need to get a cheap scope to figure the signalling better rather than risk my expensive one

Clearly, you understand nothing about oscilloscopes, either.
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