Toshiba HDTW230XS3CA 3TB external drive died

[m710q_flash]

I had been using this hard drive for a while, and it worked fine only going back and forth between 3 computers.

Plugged it into an older computer that happened to have a really loose USB port. Light flashed once and died, never to be powered up again. Not sure if it's relevant that the USB port was loose.

Anyway, now it doesn't power up at all, it's been sitting on my desk for years and figured what the heck, nothing to lose as I'm not going to pay someone to fix it, maybe I can learn something from it.

Removed the case, figured I would look for anything obviously wrong. Though to my untrained eyes everything looks kinda normal, I don't see anything melted or burnt.
Toshiba HDTW230XS3CA 3TB
Disk Drive: MQ03UBB300
Rev: AZA AA00/JP050U

Unfortunately the USB port is built into the controller board of the hard drive, so can't just swap the case for a new one like with a SATA drive. I'm guessing that these controller boards have specific information for each drive and simply swapping with an identical board is unlikely to work. If this is incorrect, I might be willing to buy an identical replacement drive and swap the board, but doubt that I could find the exact same board without opening up the case which I'm sure a seller isn't going to be willing to do.

I have needles and some very small leads for my meter but maybe I could get some guidance on what to test/bypass/whatever to possibly get it to power on again.

TIA

[diif]

Re: Toshiba HDTW230XS3CA 3TB external drive died

Check the soldering of the connector and measure the voltages on it.

[diif]

Re: Toshiba HDTW230XS3CA 3TB external drive died

Also test the fuse is has N on it.

[m710q_flash]

Re: Toshiba HDTW230XS3CA 3TB external drive died

Thanks for the reply. I got some results, results that seem really weird to me.

I removed the controller board, plugged in cable and connected it to a USB port, nothing happened. Tested the voltage with my meter, leads between the port housing and the controller side of that fuse and the light on the controller board lit up right away and showed proper voltage. I thought it was weird that the controller board lit up just from testing the voltage. So I unplugged the board, then plugged it back in, no light. Tested the voltage again and the light came back on, so I unplugged and reinstalled the board to the drive.

Same thing, no lights, drive didn't spin up. But I could just reach the controller side of that fuse, so I put my meter on it again to test the voltage as I had done previously. Surprisingly as soon as I connected my leads the drive light came on and the drive spun up like normal. Recovered all files and now I can unplug and plug in the drive repeatedly and it's working perfectly. I had plugged this drive in about 30+ times with all different ports and cables I could find and it never worked, how does simply testing the fuse cause it to power on and work like new?

This result doesn't make any sense to me at all, but I'm super happy that I was able to recover my drive contents and that it's working perfectly. I erased the drive, wrote 3tb of data to the drive, checked integrity, all is well. Strange.