Just out of warranty!!! A loud crack, my power adaptor stopped working and the surge protector it was plugged into has also ‘blown’. The hd is sat well away from residual heat from my pc but I have been concerned about the amount of heat coming off this device and the fact that it obviously has no ventilation, for some time, looks like other people think the same.
I suppose this now means a new hd and data retrieval and I know from previous experience with a failed internal drive just how much this can cost.
Many folks are concerned about the heat and lack of any cooling fan. In my opinion this is a design fault based on cost cutting. Costs too much to put a fan in there. Believe it or not! A company’s bottom line would be millions less if they put fans in their external drives!
I usually tape a small cpu-style fan to my external drives and maybe drill holes in the housing to get some air movement going.
I’m not so sure you need to use a data recovery company. Why not replace the power adapter and see if that was the problem? Your disk might be in working order!
With any luck, a TVS diode has protected your drive, or even better, perhaps the damage was restricted to your USB-SATA bridge board. A DIY repair may cost you nothing, but we won’t know until we see the PCBs. That said, opening the enclosure will probably void your warranty, unless WD authorises you to do so.
I intend to replace the power adaptor as I am wondering like you if that was indeed the problem in the first place.
My local PC world, the retailer here in the UK, so called tech expert sniffed both the power adaptor and ext hard drive and said 'they’re cooked mate cost you £700 quid for data recovery if they indeed can recover anything… I’ll sell you a new one…oh and it won’t be WD… they’re **bleep**… He didn’t say that 2 years ago, they were the best you could buy then.
As I speak I’ve just had delivered another 500Gb Elements drive from WD delivered with the wrong power adaptor for the UK!!!
That is the question I am asking myself. Where was the initial problem i.e… inside the hd causing the power adaptor to fail and subsequently the surge protector in the power strip or the other way round.
I am awaiting another UK style power adaptor to be delivered and I have a replacement power strip incidentally in the latter the incoming fuse hadn’t blown i.e. there is power going in but none coming out. I’ve never looked inside one of these before, I’ve never needed to, I’ll see if there are any serviceable parts.
UK standard power adaptor arrived this morning. Connected it to hd, connected USB lead, held breath…led starts flashing and bingo there is life.
I immedaiately copied all data off it onto my pc hard drive and I will also copy to the replacement external hd I bought having been told by staff @ PC World that my existing hd was beyond repair.
Yep, there are times that you get lucky and the problem is a simple fix… And keep in mind that WD is no better or worse than Seagate. Any disk from any mfg. can fail at any time.
