Disk hard drive doing strange and un-usefull things

[Daniel~]

I can't seem to do a thing with it!
It's a 320 gig disk drive that was fine when disconnected.
I pull it up in "Disks" and "Disks wants nothing to do with it. Usually I can tear apart partitions and re-format with ease in "Disks"
BTW I've never seen this drives Current name before What"s a Phison 2303 PRAM???
So like help!
How can I reformat this evil doer?

 

[booman]

Strange that Mint see's the drive as PRAM. Is this an old spare drive you are trying to use?
You don't have to mount it to format it, the disk utility only has to see that its plugged in.
But something is not properly recognizing the drive as a hard drive.
Was it a Mac drive?
Maybe its encrypted?

 

[Daniel~]

Been at it all night...
It 's not
Mac drive?
Maybe its encrypted?
Just a old HD. I'm using a Sata converter on an ATA drive, perhaps I've forgotten something in BIOS setup?

 

[booman]

oh, maybe... I didn't think about the BIOS
So where did you get this spare drive?

 

[ThunderRd]

Dan, is there already data on this disk that you are after, or are you content to overwrite it with zeroes?

 

[Daniel~]

it's not that old...I'd say under 5 years old. it's last use was simply to store my back ups, music and the odds and ends
I want to save from install to new install.. So yeah,

I'm just itching to smoke whatever is on it as being just so yesterday!

I've been trying different Sata drive inputs and have seen a change!
Now it's not recognized at all! ":O}

I'll go back to my old input. and get back to you.":O}

 

[Daniel~]

Put the fire truck back in the barn!
There was smoke but no fire.
The smoke had only gathered in my mind..and not, thank the gods smoke, of a blueish nature.
Ya see my converter,r if any has not see one, is just a bit of plastic with three connections.
The first is an IDE connect that mounts directly to the HD.
The second is a power input for an A drive power plug ...and now that A drive is dead dead dead... for this!
The third of course is the SATA plug input.

I tried every open Sata I had and none of them, not even the original Sata that gave us the
Phison 2303 PRAM would even become visible anywhere on my system.

So I do what I do when trying to figure things out...I re-re-re-check all my connections, as usual they were all fine...and as usual the solution came to me while I cursed my light and big fat hands...
What for a brief time was reported as a Phison,...
Must have been the converter itself,
as it seem unlikely that it would report on a HD that was not itself plugged into power.
So I took a chance that it was supposed to have a bit of juice of it'd very own...I made the leap!
I plugged it in!

Tune in next week when I will attempt to tie my own shoes."O}
I thank you guys for the time spent in consideration!

 

[ThunderRd]

Done and dusted.