Old PLX Technologies Blank Oxford Device external usb drive recognized by lsusb but not by fdisk

Question

Old external hard drive has sat collecting dust for about 8 years, and now I need something from it. I plugged it into my ubuntu 18.04 laptop and nothing. I've been trying to diagnose over the last few weeks but I haven't figured anything out I have jumped on probably 30 or 40 different threads with similar or related types of issues, and tried everything from these that even made a lick of sense, but I still have the basic problem.

dmesg:

[  194.381226] usb 1-5: new full-speed USB device number 12 using xhci_hcd
[  194.533476] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0928, idProduct=ffff
[  194.533480] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0

here is what's in /dev/

$ ls  /dev/ | grep sd
sda
sda1
sda2
sda3
sdb
sdb1

note that sda is the main disk and sdb is an extra internal disk on the laptop.

 lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 010: ID 5986:066d Acer, Inc 
Bus 001 Device 011: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 1c7a:0603 LighTuning Technology Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 012: ID 0928:ffff PLX Technology, Inc. (formerly Oxford Semiconductor, Ltd) Blank Oxford Device
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:082d Logitech, Inc. HD Pro Webcam C920
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 17a0:0305 Samson Technologies Corp. GoMic compact condenser mic
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c52f Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04d9:2829 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0d8c:0139 C-Media Electronics, Inc. Multimedia Headset [Gigaware by Ignition L.P.]
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

again, lsusb sees it.

fdisk:

fdisk -l
Disk /dev/loop0: 59 MiB, 61911040 bytes, 120920 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 210,8 MiB, 221065216 bytes, 431768 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop2: 290,4 MiB, 304545792 bytes, 594816 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop3: 291 MiB, 305086464 bytes, 595872 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop4: 210,8 MiB, 221065216 bytes, 431768 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop5: 96,6 MiB, 101318656 bytes, 197888 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop6: 97 MiB, 101658624 bytes, 198552 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop7: 177,4 MiB, 186056704 bytes, 363392 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/sda: 111,8 GiB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 3C0221A5-B4A3-4EA1-81DB-B7EB4291CA30
Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048   1050623   1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sda2    1050624 226050047 224999424 107,3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  226050048 234438655   8388608     4G Linux swap
Disk /dev/sdb: 111,8 GiB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 33452348-6EF2-4989-AC01-57609D066D55
Device     Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 234438655 234436608 111,8G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/loop8: 177,2 MiB, 185835520 bytes, 362960 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop9: 55 MiB, 57626624 bytes, 112552 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop10: 55,3 MiB, 58007552 bytes, 113296 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I followed advice from the comment in this thread: Seagate 2T external hard drive can not be mounted, detected by lsusb but not by fdisk -l the second comment about

go to /var/log/syslog to find idVendor and idProduct:

of course, modified to match mine, with:

echo options usb-storage quirks=0928:ffff:u > /etc/modprobe.d/ignore_uas.conf

But again no change.

I see there's not usually much movement in these threads, but on the off chance that someone can help me and others stuck in limbo on this I thought I'd ask the question.