Hard drive horror story X2

[RM]

I had a Western Digital mod.WD1200 120gb and a mod. WD600 60 gb both
working fine until my power supply died. After replacing the power
supply bios will not detect either drive. I tried them in other
computers with the same result. The only thing I can assume is that
the power supply put out too much voltage and burned something
out on the logic boards.
Does anyone know if there is a fuse or resistor (hopefully) that blows
in case of over-voltage in these models? Also, the logic boards on
these drives are super easy to remove with no wires to unsolder.
If I get a working drive of the same model and exchange boards could
I recover my data? Is there anything that could blow inside the sealed
drive with too much voltage?
I had some backup but I was also backing up from drive to drive
thinking "what are the odds both drives would fail at the same time"?
Apparently, not that high.

 

[ElJerid]

I had a Western Digital mod.WD1200 120gb and a mod. WD600 60 gb both
working fine until my power supply died. After replacing the power
supply bios will not detect either drive. I tried them in other
computers with the same result. The only thing I can assume is that
the power supply put out too much voltage and burned something
out on the logic boards.
Does anyone know if there is a fuse or resistor (hopefully) that blows
in case of over-voltage in these models? Also, the logic boards on
these drives are super easy to remove with no wires to unsolder.
If I get a working drive of the same model and exchange boards could
I recover my data? Is there anything that could blow inside the sealed
drive with too much voltage?
I had some backup but I was also backing up from drive to drive
thinking "what are the odds both drives would fail at the same time"?
Apparently, not that high.

A friend of mine had the same "horror" some time ago. Some capacitors of the
psu litteraly "exploded", resulting in defective mobo, hard disks (Maxtor),
vga card and ram. And of course, no back-up at all. I searched on the net
for a second-hand IDENTICAL drive and fortunately found one where there was
a lot of bad sectors, but with a good controller. Exchanging the drive
controllers made the discs again accessible and solved this problem. It's
important to find really identical drives, with the same product numbers, as
most manufacturers apply some changes from one product to another. For
example, I found a similar Maxtor drive with same capacity and rpm, but with
different product numbers, and the controllers could not be exchanged
(different dimensions and connectors). For your info, I also tried to
purchase a new controller and contacted Maxtor, but the answer was that they
do not supply any parts for their discs. I had also contacted a few "data
recovery" companies, but their services were un-payable for a home user.
Good luck!

 

[Ken]

I had a Western Digital mod.WD1200 120gb and a mod. WD600 60 gb both
working fine until my power supply died. After replacing the power
supply bios will not detect either drive. I tried them in other
computers with the same result. The only thing I can assume is that
the power supply put out too much voltage and burned something
out on the logic boards.
Does anyone know if there is a fuse or resistor (hopefully) that blows
in case of over-voltage in these models? Also, the logic boards on
these drives are super easy to remove with no wires to unsolder.
If I get a working drive of the same model and exchange boards could
I recover my data? Is there anything that could blow inside the sealed
drive with too much voltage?
I had some backup but I was also backing up from drive to drive
thinking "what are the odds both drives would fail at the same time"?
Apparently, not that high.

The easiest way to solve your problem is by the replacement of the
logic board as suggested in ElJerid's message. There are no fuses on
the logic board that I am aware of, but often there are chokes installed
very close to the power input connector. Often these chokes will open
when too much current is drawn. I trust you know what a choke is? (If
not, you probably should not mess with it.) Since the choke is not a
tuned circuit as a L/C resonant circuit would be, you have some latitude
with respect to its value. I have found and replaced such chokes on HD
logic boards and repaired the HD. It requires the proper tools and some
soldering skill, but it can be done.