Fried external usb drive

F

frieddriveman

New Member
Hi All

I have just stuppidly connected a 24volt power supply to my 12v Western Digital usb drive:o, needless to say it's toast (does'nt power up when connected to the correct power supply unit), apart from a slight burning smell the drive looks ok.

Obviously it'll never work in it's current form again, but is all lost ?. will all the data on the drive be lost or would just the internal power connection be fried.

What are my options for; recovering the information on the drive, using it as an internal drive (i do have space), or fitting a replacement power unit ?.

Because sensitive data is on the drive I would rather do it "in house", ideally i would like to be able to recover the data (if not fried/lost) and put it onto a bigger drive, the drive's only 80gb anyway and i'm more concerned about the data than the drive itself. Obviously I'm not able to power up the drive & connecting a usb by itself does nothing.

Any help, information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Dave
 
Are you able to open the unit up and remove the drive? It could be that the power on the USB enclosure is shot but the drive itself is ok.
 
Thanks for the swift reply, basically the drive is encased in a plastic case, at one end is the power button and at the other the 2 ports, one for usb and the other for power, on the inside at the power end is a small circuit board which is connected by a yellow interface cable and a small power connector. the drive itself looks like it is merely screwed in & it looks as if disconnecting the 2 leads and undoing the screws would free the drive.

I have looked on ebay and at CCL online (who i buy by computer bits from) and can see countless drive cases for sale and for as little as £15.

Would i have fried the hard drive contents or just the small circuit board that the drive's currently connected to ?.

If recoverable/workable i would prefer to keep the drive as an external drive, with this in mind would buying another powered case and connecting the drive resolve the problem, would it be that easy ?.

Having looked at the cases available i'm unsure of whether I'd need a 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch case, is there any way of telling ?.
 
If I had to guess (which I really do :P) I would say the little PCB on the usb enclosure would fry before the drive would. So long as the drive is working, you can put it in any enclosure that has the right interface. If you tell me the model # I might be able to find out what kind of case you need.
 
I think Cromewell's guess is right on. It's not very likely that you fried the drive itself, most external HDs you buy have components regulating power to the drive that will fry much more easily.

Assuming it's just a standard 3.5" drive (with IDE connection, not SATA) like most externals it should be simple finding a case online. Easy way to tell the size: 2.5" will fit into your pocket about the same as a wallet; a 3.5" is closer to the size and weight of a textbook. The yellow interface cable you describe is almost certain to be IDE too, but I can't gurantee.

Still need that model number to be sure.
 
The serial No's; WCAM94732328 size wise it's roughly 15 x 10cm, it's roughly the same size as a 3.5 inch floppy drive, hence the reason I think it might be a 3.5 drive, but not knowing what a 2.5 inch looks like I'm not certain.

I've taken it apart and it is indeed an e-ide hard drive.
 
If it was a 2.5" you'd probably know by seeing it, they are thin.

Here's a stack of them for comparison. I can't find that model # anywhere but here.
money2.jpg
 
I've been to see some guys in my company's IT dept and i can confirm that it's definetly a 3.5 inch drive, they had a 2.5 they were checking out and it's about half the size of my drive.

It's also e-ide and the good news is that they connected it up to a usb device and were able to tell me the drive itself is in tact, so I guess I'll be looking for a new case/caddie as opposed to pulling my hair out, phew :)

Any idea what the device would have been, it was plugged into a pc usb port & they just hooked it up to the drive. The o/s detected it straight away.
 
It's just a USB drive enclosure. There's nothing fancy about them, you can get one for about $20. :)
 
The device the guys used to connect the "bare" hard drive to the pc is known as a USB to IDE ADAPTOR or as an R DRIVER.

With one of these things I don't see why you can treat any external bare drive as a plug & play device, especially if using XP or Vista.

I have ordered an ICY BOX though which should arrive tomorrow (Friday 7th), so I'll sling the drive in that, it's handy to know though that devices like the adaptor exist (it's a very easy way of telling if you've knacked your drive or not, as I found).

Thanks to all that helped.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top