Opps, I messed up my external....

S

sn1ckers

New Member
yesterday I was connecting my external hard drive. The cables were at their limit, and I didn't tilt my drive forward to connect the usb cable to it; thinking "well it should only go in one way". Well I was wrong, and the cable was in the device backwards. Now when I connect it to my laptop, it tells me that the device has malfunctioned and cannot be used. I can't put the hard drive in my desktop because (1) I don't have a sata cable and (2) I don't have my monitor power cable. My question is, do you think that I just broke my external enclosure or do you think that I messed up the hard drive too?

Thanks,
Nick
 
P

PC eye

banned
Try the drive in someone else's case? Good friend hopefully. Try another drive in the external enclosure? naaaa.... Check the connectors on the usb cable? take a look. Replace the usb cable? Most likely.
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
Well I have a cable coming the mail that will let me hook the hard drive up as an internal. First I'll check that the hard drive works. Then I'll get a new usb cable and see if the external works, then I'll buy a new or not.

Thanks, I didn't think that I could have destroyed the cable.
 
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
I seriously doubt the cable is damaged. At 5V supply it's not exactly going to heat the room - max current at the port should be 500mA. More likely the electronics are damaged. Reversing pins 1&4 is putting the 5V supply to ground, though the drive's electronics may be isolated from true ground. Basically reversing the voltage supplied. Damage depends on what overload protection there is on the usb power supply and any reverse polarity protection on the drive input.

Usb is supposed to be fused so it may be worth checking the motherboard. Here's a link just for an example. I just Googled "usb fuse". You could check your motherboard manual or browse their site for info.

Do other usb devices still work if you have any?

Starman*
 
P

PC eye

banned
Starman* said:
I seriously doubt the cable is damaged. At 5V supply it's not exactly going to heat the room - max current at the port should be 500mA. More likely the electronics are damaged. Reversing pins 1&4 is putting the 5V supply to ground, though the drive's electronics may be isolated from true ground. Basically reversing the voltage supplied. Damage depends on what overload protection there is on the usb power supply and any reverse polarity protection on the drive input.

Usb is supposed to be fused so it may be worth checking the motherboard. Here's a link just for an example. I just Googled "usb fuse". You could check your motherboard manual or browse their site for info.

Do other usb devices still work if you have any?

Starman*
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about voltage damaging a cable but forcing it in wrong would. If you reverse a cable for a brief period the current isn't strong enough to damage much of anything. But if you force a plug in the wrong way you can easily damage contacts.
 
P

PC eye

banned
Since you know that reversing the cable did't cook anything take a look at the contacts on the cable and the enclosure to see if you spot anything bent or broken off. You will probably find that the drive will work with the SATA cable but no longer usb cable if you find any damage there.
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
By looking at the device and cable, I can't really see anything that screams "I'm broke!", but I've never really taken a close look at either of them before. The USB cable does sit rather wobbily in the device, however; I never checked that before, so it could be normal.

In any case I'll find out in a few days.
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
It was a B to A cable. I have now put the hard drive in my desktop (as it was before it went into the external case). Here is the sad part, my computer does not detect it at all. It doesn't show up in the BIOS, it doesn't show up on the boot screen (on a screen when my computer boots, it shows what SATA devices are connected, it only shows the main hard drive.), and it doesn't show up in Windows. That leads me to believe that I messed up the drive it self (how?). So now my question is, is there any way to fix it? If not, how can I get my data off of it?

Any ideas, questions, anything? Thanks
 
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
If the drive is permanently damaged, it will most likely be the electronics. The platters should be undamaged unless the reverse voltage on the data and power supply lines happened to cause a momentary random write. Trouble is it will very expensive to get the platters put in another chassis to recover the data. I doubt it would be a do-it-yourself job and would require a second identical drive. Maybe not too difficult to swap the electronics?

There are a number of utilities that can read hdds at a basic level, SpinRite, WinHex, GetDataBack. I've no experience with them at the degree of destruction you have. If the electronics are gone, you're out of luck but worth a try with demo versions where available.

Starman*
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
So in your opinion, what is most likely the problem (what is wrong) with my drive?

I'll look into those programs and see what I can come up with.

And what do you mean by If? How could it be temporarily damaged? Would it be hard to change the electronics?
 
Last edited:
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
By "if damaged" I mean if definitely damaged and not due to any other outside faults, mentioned to date or otherwise. I doubt damage would be temporary. Assuming you can connect another hdd successfully to the same pc/usb cable that would put the problem firmly in the fritzed hdd.

I would have thought the drive would have diode protection against reverse polarity but I just don't know. This is one situation where a dual option firewire/usb drive may be better. The firewire may still be OK in these circumstances.

The affected electronics may be in the enclosure of the external hdd rather than the hdd itself. Depends what you have. Look in the box. You should be able to do some sort of swop with a similar drive and that may be the end of the problem.

If that does not resolve the issue, you may want to try the software options first, that's your call. Here's a guide to what's in a hdd. The electronics don't look too difficult to change (no need to get at the mechanical side of the drive). You may be voiding the warranty on another drive you bought to do a swop. The other drive would have to be exactly the same and there is still the risk something may be different.

I would ask in a local repair shop to get an opinion. They may have some spare electronics from a similar drive that had mechanical failure.

For my own interest, I just took apart a Maxtor drive that had failed on me. The platter was badly scored where the read head had touched.

Starman*
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
Hmm thanks. I'll try some stuff over the next couple days and see what I can accomplish. The funny thing is that I was going (within the week it went poopy-shizzle) to buy some DVD-RWs and back up everything on the drive to prevent this sort of thing. I guess Karma beat me to the punch.

Thanks
 
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
That's bad luck. Rule of thumb is to always have two copies but that's not always practical. Most of my data goes directly to dvd but just the one copy. The important files on my pc are backed up to a second hdd and I've (ironically) just bought an external hdd to back that up. The external drive is to provide a backup that can be electrically isolated when I'm not around, as a guard against lightning strikes etc.

You may want to play around for a few days and see if anyone comes up with better ideas.

Starman*
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
Do you have any experience with those products above? I have a trial of WinHex and somethng called R-Studio Data Recovery 3. How can I get these programs to know that there is another hard drive there? Right now, they only show the one internal hard drive, not the messed up one.

Is there anything outside of windows that I could use? Or something through the commad prompt?
 
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
As I previously said, I've not had experience with hdds that cannot be communicated with.

You have not followed up on PC Eye's suggestion of reading the drive with a SATA cable. Did you get one and try it? One way or another you have to do that, even if you have to take it into a repair shop. It will tell you definitively where the problem is.

If the actual hdd is OK (retrieve any data you need as soon as possible) then the problem is in the enclosure electronics or the connections as PC Eye commented on. No choice but to buy a new one (either a new enclosure that suits the hdd or a complete enclosure/hdd unit). You haven't said what type of drive it is.

Starman*
 
S

sn1ckers

New Member
Opps, I thought we were clear about this. My bad.

It is a WD 250 gb SATA hard drive. I was using it as an internal drive until I bought a Azio external enclosure for it. After I the enclosure told me that it couldn't connect to the device (I believe it said "the device has encountered an error and... [don't remember]") I took the hard drive and put it back in my desktop. However, my desktop does not even know that anything is there. I have switched which SATA port it is connected to and used a different SATA cable, but neither made a difference. So now I assume that something is wrong with the drive. THe drive does not show up in the BIOS, or on the screen that shows what is connected to the SATA ports, it doesn't show up in My Computer, or with any of the programs that you tried; I have a couple (WinHex, Ontrack, and another) of trials editions. I am on campus, so maybe I can find a professor that deals with hardware and ask him what could be wrong or if he know's how to fix it. Anyything else that I can provide that would be of more help?

I looked into (got a quote from Ontrack) for sending it in. I knew it would be costly, but I was curious. It would be $100 for a eval. (just to see what can be done) plus $500-2700 for a fix (depending on the amount of work). That is too much money. The data is replaceable, but it would be very time-consuming.... I will have to track down all of it and try to remember what I had. It would be nice if I could salvage the data from my drive (do you think it is still intact?). If not I'll have to buy a new one.

One other thing I could try, since the external case is equipped with E-SATA, is try to use it through that. However I doubt that will work, seeing as the drive doesn't show from being in the PC, and because at one point the E-SATA quit working on me. I had it all hooked up, then my drive just shut off. I think that the E-SATA bracket went to hell (I think I remember reading some reviews of that happening).

Thank you, and sorry for all the trouble.
 
Starman*

Starman*

New Member
That explains the situation a lot better. Sounds like the external setup never worked.

On further thought I've changed my mind about damage. The internal electronics of the enclosure and the hdd are powered from a dc unit so the polarity is going to be correct. I don't see how reversing the polarity of the usb power terminals would affect the electronics. There is no need for usb power in the enclosure other than passing through to any usb receptacles for use by other devices. There must be quite a buffer of electronics between the usb data inputs and the hdd. I can't see the usb affecting the hdd. The enclosure's input circuits maybe.

I would expect the hdd to still work if mounted in a pc. I'm out of ideas.

Starman*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top