SATA Power Connector / Adaptor Question

Ian_Eb · 23 Jun 2013 at 22:27

Hi,

I have my father in laws PC here at the moment which appears to have died unexpectedly.

When I opened it up I found the Molex - Sata power adaptor lead has melted and two of the pins on the hard disk PSU connection have melted.

Does anyone have a non melted one that they could possibly check with a meter to see if the yellow wire goes through to multiple pins in the SATA block or if it goes to just one. From the spec sheet it seems that SATA has 3 12v pins and there is only one melted one here.

Typically, there are no backups and everything is on there!

tres_kun · 23 Jun 2013 at 22:42

The sata plug has 3 pins for every line
first plug that hard drive in another pc
If the plug has melted maybe the hard drive is still alive
The psu might be not
If the plug on the hard drive is in bad condition or the data is very important take it to a IT shop that deals with data recovery

Ian_Eb · 23 Jun 2013 at 22:52

Cheers,

So all 3 12V pins are common then? Primary pin which connects first is destroyed along with the first ground pin. The pc works fine so PSU is ok. If i had to guess then i would blame a crappy adaptor which doesn't feel like it grips the pins very tightly.

I am hoping that the adaptor just supply power to the first 12V pin and not the others. Will speak to the test guys at work and dig out some proper sata connectors and see if it spins up.

Hyburnate · 23 Jun 2013 at 22:54

Best of luck, subbed to see where this goes.

tres_kun · 23 Jun 2013 at 23:05

can you also post a picture with the plug?
i myself have never seen a molten sata power plug

biuro74 · 23 Jun 2013 at 23:10

I've burnt my customer's hard drive by simple "bad touch" with no anti-static wrist band worn. Results were as described by you - two cables melted and some smog after turning PC on.

PC worked fine after that (once drive was removed), obviously, but drive died. No data could have been restored, until similar electronics would be found to swap them to a broken drive.

So - your hardware had a short circuit there, if drive's power cable has been melted, it seems its electronics could have been damaged as well. You will be lucky, if this damage won't spread over just a SATA power adaptor.

Ian_Eb · 23 Jun 2013 at 23:19

Here you go.

Ian_Eb · 23 Jun 2013 at 23:23

I will find out in the morning with luck. The pc has been turned on for the last 3 months as he is of the opinion that it is better to leave it on rather than keep turning on & off.

Was ok at 10pm when they went to bed but then dead in the morning when they came down. Was "A funny smell" in the room earlier or possibly the day before but no one could identify where it was coming from.

pryere · 24 Jun 2013 at 15:32

That looks like something has dripped on it?

Ian_Eb · 25 Jun 2013 at 12:08

Not too far from the truth. After some careful scalpel use it looks like the crappy molex-SATA power adaptor has toasted itself and melted onto the sata connector. The resultant mess had congealed on the SATA connector and was not coming off!

finally got the crud off and now the drive powers up and works fine. One much happier father in law :-)

pryere · 3 Jul 2013 at 18:43

Result!