Pete The Biker

My friend (or his partner!) accidentally plugged in his laptop power supply into his external hard drive and fried it. He is in major panic mode now because it has his daughter's wedding video on it etc etc etc (before you say it he knows about the need for backups!).

He has removed the drive itself from the caddy and plugged it into a new drive caddy but no luck.

We are thinking that it might be damage to the circuit board on the drive itself, and we are hoping that it might be possible to swap the circuit board for a live one from the same model of drive.

I am away on hols for a week from tomorrow, but meanwhile he will be watching this thread - if anyone has any advice it would be VERY much appreciated.....

Pete The Biker

BlkKnight

If it is just the PCB on the disk, these can be swapped over. Bit fiddly but easy enough to do.

Have you tried shoving the disk into a PC - this might provide better results - or at least establish if it's the PCB or the motor which is buggered.

Depending on the value of the data, there are some companies which specialise in data recovery.

I have used VOGON with great success.

Pete The Biker

Thanks BlkKnight

I think that having tried to plug in the bare drive via the external caddy wil have the same effect as plugging direct into the pc....

My mate has had a quote of £199 for experts to have a go at it...... that seems about the going rate, and given the risks of trying a DIY approach (which would involve buying a donor drive for £70-100 for a 500 Gb drive) probably isn't bad value........

Thanks for the tip about VOGON.

Anyone else got any comments?

Cheers

Pete The Biker

Sonic'

Inside the caddy will be a small pcb that is seperate to the drive itself

So trying the bare drive (ie taking it out of its caddy) and putting it inside the PC it may be ok, and you may just need a new caddy

Admittedly there isnt many components on the PCB but hopefully you may just have fried them and not harmed the drive or its own PCB at all

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

As said I would expect the caddy to blow first - in which case it may be that the other caddy just did not work with the drive.

2 options --- put the hd into a pc directly and try it or get one of the £10 usb to IDE and sata cables off ebay --- they seem to work with whatever drives I through at them - including ones that do not work in other caddies.

Dave.

Pete The Biker

Thanks for your replies guys - I have just come back from sunny Tenerife and will get an update from my mate and let you know how things have developed while I have been away. Last I heard he was intending to go to a professional data recovery company.........


Pete The Biker