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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Hard drive Failure
Aaargh. Yes, this is not C64 specific. well indirectly it may be...
I have had 500gb worth of personal data on my maxtor usb harddrive (including unreleased c64 conversion tools etc). I had accidently plugged in a higher voltage power connector and now the harddrive will not work at all.
A green flickering light is just displayed.
From research this unit just consists of a standard IDE harddrive connected to usb circuitry which means in theory that i should be able to connect it to my desktop and get the data back.
Now the main cause of worry... what if the drive is fried as well??
I dont want to spend too much of a fortune. Has anyone experienced something like this and what can be done about it. eg contact info etc.
I have heard ontrack is quite reliable, but costs an absolute fortune.
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
If the drive is fried, it's VERY likely you can just replace the board on the hdd with an identical new one. |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Yes, I have considered replacing the board as well in the unfortunate chance that it still wont work via ide interface although would it not be cheaper to get it sent to repairs instead? Depends on how easy it is to dismantle the motherboard of the harddrive. if the board can be removed via screws and unclicking ribbon cable, then this would be trivial. I know for certain that the actual magnetic media should be ok |
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Devia
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 401 |
You connected the WRONG external power supply to your external USB harddrive, is that correctly understood?
Most likely you only damaged the power supply circuitry (not the power supply, but whatever the power supply connects to inside the HD box).
Remove the actual drive and mount it in your PC to see if it works.
If the drive is damaged, dont EVER buy whatever brand USB disk you have there again.. it's a bad design in that case.
Replacing the HD pcb board with an identical one, probably won't help you much. It will make the drive "functional" again, but likely the data will be unreadable.
What is the rated Voltage on the "right" power supply and what is the rated Voltage on the "wrong" one?
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
The harddrive is a maxtor 3200 usb harddrive with a 12v adaptor
The laptop has a 19v adaptor
From reviews, the chances of the harddrive being intact is quite high. but who knows. I really hope that the harddrive will be functional still.
Would the excess current scramble the magnetic media?? Hopefully i am one of those lucky ones who can just stick the ide drive to a desktop and get ALL the data........ |
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Slator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 274 |
as said before, most likely just the USB->SATA/IDE converter in the chassis is fried. I had that stuff several times at work, the HDD inside wasn't damaged at all.
Just open that case, get the drive out, check whether it is SATA or IDE, get yourself an external adapter for that ide/sata to usb and hook it up to your laptop.
It depends on how "urgent" you need that data, if you send in the HDD to Maxtor you cannot be sure of the data on the drive and if they give you a new one so you better get rid of some money and buy that external housing, they are not that expensive and you can easily find out if your drive is still working.
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1074 |
Yep, just connect the IDE drive inside directly to the motherboard, or buy a new external USB cabinet. The drive is probably fine.
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Ok. i have took out the harddrive and connected it to my desktop
now the desktop will not turn on. It turns on only when removed. I attempted to change jumper settings and even removed a few items just incase it was too much power for the desktop to run the harddrives,cd rom etc
funnily enough when i now plug in the usb controller section via adaptor to the mains, i get a bright light
So what is the problem here? did the power surge somewhat damage the harddrive circuitry instead of the controller?
aaaargh |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1074 |
Wow, that sucks. Sounds like the HD controller board is toast. You have to transplant the board from a working HD to fix it :/ |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Yes. Looks like this is the only option available.
Its funny how the powersurge did not damage the controller at all. I have connected an IDE cd rom and the controller is supplying power to it no problem, yet when i connect the harddrive, absolutely nothing and the controller led does not turn on.
The controller would obviously have to be for exactly the same harddrive (but would the capacity matter?) eg 200gb, 320gb etc
The only problem here is that perhaps the type of harddrive inside may differ from the one i have.
It was a Maxtor 3200 320gb external usb drive which has a seagate barracuda drive inside, but i have heard that there may be different models of harddrive inside each unit.
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Zer0-X
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 78 |
Those USB cases usually feed the 12V from the PSU directly to the drive. But the 12V is also routed through a regulator to get the 5V for the drive and whatever voltage the rest of the USB-board requires. Regulator can take more voltages than V12, just generating more heat in the conversion process, until blowing up if you give it too much voltage. That's why the board is still working and the drive not. |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Ok so its repairs or board replacement?
I wonder what the chances would be of my very important data being scrambled? |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
if that data is actually *really* very important to you - stop doing trickery yourself NOW. prepare for spending lots of money to someone like ontrack.
if thats no option, lean back. breath. learn how to make backups. your data is lost.
(replacing the drives board actually can work.... but it's harder than it seems - you not only need one from the exact same drive modell, but also one with the exact same firmware. this will be almost impossible to find unless you are collecting huge amounts of hds for exactly that reason, like any serious data recovery company does) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Does it matter if the board has the same firmware? if they are different what would be the problem?
Perhaps i can just hand it over to a repair shop such as PC world emphasising that i want the data to remain intact?
Ontrack are way too expensive. wonder how much they would charge for 300gb of data.. £20,000? |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1074 |
Whatever you do, don't turn over the drive to minimum wage monkeys at PC World.
The make of the USB cabinet (Maxtor) is of no consequence, you want to pick up a naked barracuda drive. If it's a fairly recent 320 GB drive it shouldn't be too hard.
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Groapaz mentioned that the bios of the motherboard needs to be identical or would this matter? |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1074 |
No, he was talking about the HD controller board firmware. It's just a plain IDE drive. |
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Six
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 289 |
Is it a regular old IDE drive? If you plug it in with the ribbon cable backwards, it will do exactly what you described no matter what the jumper settings are. (red stripe goes towards the power adapter) Same thing for the board end of the connector. Also, if you have two drives on the cable, they both have to be jumpered properly. If you give the model numbers here, I bet someone would know the exact jumper settings. I'm pretty sure on Maxtor there are two different jumperings for standalone master and master with slave attached. Depending on your PC mobo and bios, it may or may not boot with improper jumpering.
(Of course, you may already know all this, I'm just throwing it out there in the hope that it helps) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
The drive was originally an external usb 320gb maxtor model
I removed the usb to ide controller and took out the IDE drive from inside (which is a seagate barracuda)
Its certainly the drive which is damaged. I have tried it in two different desktops (and removed all other drives/cd rom etc
The usb to ide controller works fine. it powers other devices no problem.
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Ok. After some research it was suggested that the main problem may be a blown diode (ST BUX Cxxx) which is located inbetween the 12v and Gnd power. Apparantly seagate drives are known to have this fuse blown
Furthermore, this causes massive draw in power (eg 150w) etc hence the reason why the computer is not turning on
It was mentioned that this diode can be 'clipped' out as a temporary measure to get the drive working which in turn would quickly allow me to copy all the data across.
How do i clip out such a small component? and would i need to replace it with anything (eg wire etc) or just remove it? The user forum mentioned that this can just be clipped out, did not state that something had to be placed there as a replacement?
I may as well give this a go. Certainly dont want to spend thousands on data recovery or the risk of some PC world 'techie' to format the drive |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646 |
Although I sympathize with you in your problematic situation, I am not sure if this discussion belongs on CSDb? Feel free to disregard my comment if you think otherwise... |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Well I think it may do.. The harddrive contains source code for many of my unfinished converters to the C64 including a full screen full color vector quantiser converter. etc etc
No harddrive=no more c64 productions
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2968 |
Sounds like a welcome excuse to stop any C64 activity. I have heard similar stories by unnamed people many times. :) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Well.. Harddrive is fully functional now thanks to removing the blown diode/capacitor. But no surge protection on it anymore. Backed up the important data immediately. Phew. :-} |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1074 |
Nice!
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
I now expect a "full screen full color vector quantiser converter", published shortly after this thread is closed. |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
You better believe it ;-} |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646 |
@Twoflower: ...and don't forget the "etc etc" that will be released too. :) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
hihihihiih ;-} |
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chancer
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 346 |
algorithm
if you find the drive works but is corrupt , this is a very good tool.. but not cheap.. if the drive is still accessible.
(even if it doesn't show the file structure on screen)
http://www.runtime.org/
maybe it was just the USB housing that you messed up?
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
The harddrive now works perfectly (albeit without surge protection)
The usb housing works fine. it is enclosed in it at the moment. for some reason the extra voltage fused the internal harddrive rather than the housing |
