Just killed my HDDs!

B0dh1

B0dh1

B0dh1

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Joined
15 Oct 2007
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50
I can't believe I've just done this, but bought a new Antec 850 PSU for my PC and accidentally plugged the modular power cables in the wrong way around.

The upshot? Looks like all of my (3) HDDs and my DVD burner are dead. :(

I wouldn't care so much but one of the disks has hundreds of pictures of my six-month old baby girl. I'm absolutely gutted.

Does anybody know if there is anything I can do to access the data again? Possibly an external firm?
 
I managed to plug the lead in the wrong way around where it meets the PSU unit itself (its a modular system). I'm amazed it let me actually, something of a flawed design really.

Swapping the board over sounds interesting, but it'[s quite an old unit. An Hitachi Desktar SATA 320GB (HDT725032VLA360). Anybody know where I might be able to pick up a board for one of these?
 
Actually, saying that this drive doesn't appear to be too hard to source. £50 certainly cheaper that paying for recovery, which seems to const hundreds from what I can tell.

Is swapping the boards over relatively simple?
 
B0dh1 said:
Is swapping the boards over relatively simple?
Click to expand...
Should be, the screws are usually a bit wacky but the appropriate driver won't be that difficult to find, other than that just be careful with the ribbon cable to the motor. Just make sure the drive is identical to the one you have.
 
B0dh1 said:
Actually, saying that this drive doesn't appear to be too hard to source. £50 certainly cheaper that paying for recovery, which seems to const hundreds from what I can tell.

Is swapping the boards over relatively simple?
Click to expand...
Usually one or two small brown small ribbon cables held onto the PCB with clips. GENTLY release the clips (I've broken one by accident before, by tinkering :o:p), and remove the ribbon cables. Then proceed to unscrew the PCB - if I remember right, it uses torx screws.
 
Is there not calibration data on the board that will not match after a swap?

I tries this once with two identical IBM drives and it did not work.
 
B0dh1 said:
I managed to plug the lead in the wrong way around where it meets the PSU unit itself (its a modular system). I'm amazed it let me actually, something of a flawed design really.

Swapping the board over sounds interesting, but it'[s quite an old unit. An Hitachi Desktar SATA 320GB (HDT725032VLA360). Anybody know where I might be able to pick up a board for one of these?
Click to expand...

You must have pushed it very hard, i fail to see how its the psu's fault for you not actually looking how your putting it in. They are designed so they will only go in one way unless you push it in very hard.

You have damaged taht port on your psu as well.
 
Constructive, thank you for your considered opinion. Actually, I don't appear to have damaged the ports at all as they are working fine now thank you very much.

Looking at the design, the cables plugs dont insert fully when entered in the wrong orientation. However, they go in just enough (clearly) to make contact. I may have pushed a little too hard, but I wasn't exactly forcing them in, and in the position they're in it is often tricky to know just how much pressure is required. Visibility of the ports was very limited (small case, lots of cables etc.) so it wasn't easy to see that I was putting them in the wrong way around.
 
to be fair most psu's require a fair bit of force for some connections. but if it even allowed you to touch the pins the wrong way it is poor design. my psu is modular too (hiper) and it doesn't let you put the connector in the wrong way even a little bit.

if you are worried about damaging the drive you could
1) buy the spare drive and take it to a computer shop for them to do it
2) buy 2 hard drives and practise on one, and then you'll have an extra drive for backup :p
3) just go for it! as long as you dont break the platters you shouldn't lose any data
 
Ok, well I tried this yesterday with two Samsung Spinpoints I had. One was damaged during my act of stupidity, the other was not (it wasn't installed at the time).

Unfortunately it didn't work. Swapping the board over was childs play, but although the drive span up (you could clearly hear it) it was not recognised either via an external USB caddy or when plugged directly into a PC via SATA. Returning the board to the original drive saw it function correctly. Both of these drives were bought from OCUK at exactly the same time, so they should be identical.

I had already ordered another version of the drive that held all of my photos (OCUK still stocks them thankfully), which should arrive today. I'll try it out again on these drives (Hitachi) but I'm not particularly confident after my faiure with the Samsungs. Looks like there may be more to it than a simple board swap over.
 
Usually your sucess can depend on a few things, such as: firmware, manufacturing date, etc.

I've known people people to ask people on eBay to confirm serial numbers.
 
Yikes! I hope I cant do that with my cosair HX520, although I feel lucky the top of my case pops off so I can see which way I am inserting the connectors!
 
Hmm, ok, swapping the boards didn't work :-(

The guy on that video said that for it to work the boards must come from disks made at the same time using the same firmware. The drive I got from OCUK to test this theory was almost a year older, so the firmware is bound to be different, even if the PCB looks identical.

So, looks like I need a Deskstar T7K500 from December 2006 if this is going to stand a chance of working. If anybody knows where I might be ably to source one these I'm all ears.

Failing that, it's off to the Data Recover people for this little drive, along with a large wedge of cash!
 
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