Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

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  • stevo1210
    Badcaps Legend
    • Oct 2006
    • 4156
    • Australia
    #1

    Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

    Hi Everyone,

    Helping out my brother with a HDD issue. He bought one of them daisy chain Molex to SATA power cable things from China and plugged his 1TB Seagate and 3TB 2015 Seagate drive in and literally a nice burning smell came from both hard drives. I think there's something wrong inside the cable as the PSU is not to blame because it is a very good Delta electronics unit. The Delta PSU only had 1 SATA power cable which is connected to a Samsung SSD (which is still alive and well).

    Now here's where things get tricky. All his data and photos sit on the 3TB drive and the 1TB drive. The 1TB backs up into the 3TB drive and unfortunately they are both dead. I can smell burning smell at the power connector on both drives. I haven't dealt with computer stuff for a while so not the best person to look at it - but can only help.

    I think it's only the circuit boards are burnt, but the motor and platters are okay. Maybe buy another 3TB drive and move the circuit boards over?

    Data recovery is like $500!!!
    Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous
    Tags: None
    • diif
      Badcaps Legend
      • Feb 2014
      • 6978
      • England
      #2
      Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

      Take the controller board off the drive and take a photo. It's possible the board can be repaired. Might possibly be easier to repair than find the correct controller boards.

        Comment

        • Uniballer
          Badcaps Veteran
          • Jul 2013
          • 334
          • USA
          #3
          Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

          Instructive thread: Hard drive PCB for data recovery

            Comment

            • eccerr0r
              Solder Sloth
              • Nov 2012
              • 8701
              • USA
              #4
              Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

              I guess I need to get some sata test equipment to test all cables before plugging them in. This can get expensive fast, one would think cables are tested before being sold... so much for MiC stuff (then again, aren't most cables MiC?)

                Comment

                • SteveNielsen
                  Retired Tech
                  • Jun 2012
                  • 2327
                  • USA
                  #5
                  Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                  You could use a continuity test and check for shorts between pins on them with any multimeter, I see no need for any dedicated tester gizmo. The fault may not be with the daisy chain wire, one of the drives may have had a short that damaged the other.

                    Comment

                    • eccerr0r
                      Solder Sloth
                      • Nov 2012
                      • 8701
                      • USA
                      #6
                      Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                      Probing the sata connector pretty much requires special mechanical hardware (meaning, real SATA connector) - being off one pin could be bad, eyeballing may not be accurate.

                        Comment

                        • Uranium-235
                          Comrade Glimmer
                          • Aug 2007
                          • 5042
                          • US
                          #7
                          Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                          some of those molex converters use soft plastic, and the pins shift around making it hard to get it in. This can lead to frustration and eventually putting the molex in upside down, reversing the 5 and 12 volt lines. I've done this before but realized my mistake before I turned any power on. If the board burned and its not he power supply, there is a high chance this is actually what happened, these converts can't burn HDD's themselves afaik
                          Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
                          ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

                            Comment

                            • SteveNielsen
                              Retired Tech
                              • Jun 2012
                              • 2327
                              • USA
                              #8
                              Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                              Originally posted by eccerr0r
                              Probing the sata connector pretty much requires special mechanical hardware (meaning, real SATA connector) - being off one pin could be bad, eyeballing may not be accurate.
                              Use a pin or needle on an aligator clip lead and a magnifying glass.

                                Comment

                                • eccerr0r
                                  Solder Sloth
                                  • Nov 2012
                                  • 8701
                                  • USA
                                  #9
                                  Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                                  Originally posted by SteveNielsen
                                  Use a pin or needle on an aligator clip lead and a magnifying glass.
                                  And a ruler I suppose, to make sure the pins are perfectly on track? And making sure you're perfectly aligned to one edge? Especially if the connector is missing unused pins?

                                  Getting a real connector or a real test jig is far easier.

                                    Comment

                                    • momaka
                                      master hoarder
                                      • May 2008
                                      • 12175
                                      • Bulgaria
                                      #10
                                      Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                                      I think good clear pictures (of boards and SATA connectors on the HDDs) would be the best thing to add in this thread. I know you were into photography, so that shouldn't be too hard for you .

                                      There's a chance only those cheap SATA connectors burned up and nothing else got damaged. Or if something really did go wrong, hopefully your HDDs have reverse-polarity protection diodes. I think most do anyways. Could be as simple as replacing those (or perhaps a burned coil). As diif mentioned, it may indeed be easier to repair the original boards than to try to find replacements.

                                      Originally posted by eccerr0r
                                      so much for MiC stuff (then again, aren't most cables MiC?)
                                      They are. But it really can make a world of a difference whether something was made cheap but (more or less) properly vs. just slammed together in a sweat shop.

                                      I just got burned with some cheap $1 DVI to VGA adapters. I though, man, they can't get those wrong.... Uhmmm. YES THEY CAN, actually. Good thing I decided to try them on some dead video cards. All of them bent like half of the pins in the DVI connector quite badly.

                                      "Cheap things always cost more"
                                      Last edited by momaka; 03-15-2015, 01:13 PM.

                                        Comment

                                        • SteveNielsen
                                          Retired Tech
                                          • Jun 2012
                                          • 2327
                                          • USA
                                          #11
                                          Re: Hard drive woes for the first time ever...

                                          Originally posted by eccerr0r
                                          And a ruler I suppose, to make sure the pins are perfectly on track? And making sure you're perfectly aligned to one edge? Especially if the connector is missing unused pins?

                                          Getting a real connector or a real test jig is far easier.
                                          I was referring to continuity checking of the cables and connectors with a pin or needle, not trying to fire up and test things with.

                                            Comment

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