Accidentally connected 19v supply to 2TB WD Elements and now pretty dead :(

I have read about other people doing exactly this and have read some of  fzabkar’s replies. I do hope that you are around and can maybe help me.

As per the subject line, I have connected my 2TB WD Elements HD to a 19v laptop PSU by mistake and the drive has blown. I have read about the diodes and resistors that can blow but I am unsure which they are on this drive. I have worked in electronics service for most of my life but have never dealt with hard disks.

The drive is dead, and even when plugged directly into a caddy without the input board attached it is dead. Are there any components on the input board that may have gone or is it more likely to be the main board attached to the HD?

Any pointers would be gratefully accepted. 

Thanks

 

Welcome to the Community.

I would recommend assistance from a specialized data recovery service.

http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?wdc_lang=en 

Try searching the posts by fzabkar . He has guided people throught by passing burnt doides on the boards.

Joe

Thanks for the reply.

I had already read a few of fzabkar’s posts and realised he was the main contributor with the knowledge to help. I can’t find anything relevant to my drive so I hope he pops along sometime soon :slight_smile:

Try sending him a PM and see if he responds.

Joe

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The foam obscures the component of interest. However, the typical result of an overvoltage to an external drive is a shorted 12V TVS diode plus open zero-ohm resistors.

I would examine D4 and R64, plus R60 and R88.

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1919316664_1/Free-Shipping-2060-771945-001-HDD-PCB-Board-For-Hard-Drive-Logic-Board.jpg

If a PCB repair turns out not to be feasible, then the most you should pay for a “data recovery” is US$50. All you would need to do would be to purchase a compatible PCB and transfer the chip at U12 from patient to donor. Some PCB suppliers include such a service for free.

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Many thanks for replying.

I will get back as soon as I have had chance to check the components.

Well, I finally got round to checking the components that you suggested may be at fault. All were OK apart from D4 which was s/c.

Removed the diode and tried the HD in a caddy. Drive spun up but computer reported that it needed formatting. Reconnected the USB interface board and tried USB and 12V psu and hey presto, it works!!

A big big thankyou to you, fzabkar.

I have reclaimed nearly 2TB of data that I thought had gone forever and it is now safely copied to another HD.

A Merry Christmas to all on the board and thanks for the best present I could have wished for :slight_smile:

The caddy appears to be configured with a different sector size. Some external drives use 4KB sectoring while others use 512 bytes. When you mix them up, sector 0 remains in the same place, so the OS still sees the partition table. However, the boot sector will be at a different location, so the partition appears unformatted.

You can determine the physical sector size by executing the following command at the CMD prompt:

fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo X:

… where X: is the drive letter.

A disc editor such as DMDE (freeware) will show the range of sectors at the top of the screen. This range will be less by a factor of 8 for the 4KB enclosure.

Congratulations on recovering your data, BTW.

Hi, I stumbled into this conversation after I’ve just done exactly the same thing yesterday to a WD mybook of about the same age. I plugged in a 19v power adaptor instead of the 12v one and the mybook stopped. working. I see you found a solution to repair it and recover the data. But as someone who knows nothing of electronics is there any way you could explain to me in the most simple terms what you have done to fix the problem so a layman like me could understand and fix it too?
any help would be really appreciated.
thank you!!

Hi there, this must be a common thing lol, I just did that same thing :\ and I believe the original post was in 2014…I sure hope someone still reads this one and can help. I knew the second I plugged it in it was the wrong one because I saw a glow and could smell that weird smell . so my question is…can it be repaired, is there another way to get power to it and can it still be used for anything? its an older one its only a 1.0TB and it still has lots of storage space.


Hi, i managed to resolve it by following what fzabkar told (scroll up). it’s about removing the D4 fuse, which blew when i plugged in the wrong voltage. you’ll find it in the circuit board attached to the harddrive, not the one you see when you first open the harddrive. That’s what i did, and the harddrive sprang back to life! it was a beautiful moment. Obviously im not a specialist!! i just went on what fazakbar advised and it worked for me. hope it works for you! tom

I was lucky with mine, it was only the protection diode that had gone. I didn’t even replace it, - just snipped it out, and the drive is still running, although it only has occasional use. You have a capacitor and an inductor that have been fried, so obviously its different to what I had and they are components that need replacing. Sorry I can’t help more than that, - you may have more success starting a new thread, it may get more attention. I was amazed to get an email from the forum all these years later :slight_smile:

I am happy to have found this board, after frying my PCB in a similar manner. My HDD is fine.


Are you guys saying that the board is fixable?

Better yet, does anyone have a board that I could buy? This is the one inside the enclosure. The part number is 4061-705016-004 Rev AC.

Thanks

@EdGood, there may be a simple DIY fix for your board.

L20 appears to be an inductor which filters the supply to the board. It can be bypassed with a wire or polyfuse. However, I expect that there would be additional damage elsewhere on the PCB.

Can you measure the resistance of diode D4?

Can you show us detailed photos of each side of your PCB?

I have found these photos, but they appear to be for a different board (4061-705017):

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1IEAAOSw1fVhbAfi/s-l1600.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/oR4AAOSwCsVhbAfX/s-l1600.jpg

I think this is your PCB:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/lQcAAOSwRUdjUGsk/s-l1600.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HuwAAOSwud1jUGr0/s-l1600.jpg

Thanks for quick response, Fzabkar. My PCB is similar to your second pair of pics. I don’t see any obvious other damages.

I find it impossible to measure the resistance of D4. I tried a digital meter and an analog meter, connected both forward and backward.

Here is my PCB.


Ed

What is D4, a single diode or a bridge?

@EdGood, if you cannot measure a resistance, then I cannot help you. Sorry.

That said, I feel that the solution is trivial and will probably cost nothing. Unfortunately I can’t work out what is going on in that small section of circuitry adjacent to the power socket.

If L120 were the only damaged component, then the solution would be to bypass it. However, if D4 or D18 were shorted or open, then we would need to deal with this.

D4 appears to be a Schottky rectifier rated at either 50V, 3A or 30V, 5A. The logo appears to be a photographic negative of Rectron’s logo. Unfortunately I cannot find a datasheet.

My approach would be to determine if either end of D4 or D18 are connected to L120. Also, determine if either end of D4 or D18 are connected to the +12V SATA power pins in the HDD connector.

https://pinoutguide.com/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml

I suspect that D4 provides reverse polarity protection for the PCB. I don’t know what D18 does.

Sorry, what I meant by can’t measure resistance is that the value seemed to depend on the scale used. I would expect a difference only when reversing the meter probes. Perhaps I remove it and measure it out of circuit.

I will try again later and I will also follow up with your other suggestions.

Thanks again.