Is my Buslink external hard drive fried?

[M.L.]

Hello. After reconfiguring his computer and peripherals, my brother
connected the wrong AC adapter brick to his Buslink external USB 2.0
40 GB hard drive. It now appears that the device is fried because he
couldn't get it to work even after attaching the correct Buslink AC
adapter. The power light will momentarily flash on, but nothing after
that. I'd like to know if someone can predict the electronic outcome
of his predicament:

A). The USB enclosure is fried but the hard drive is OK.

B). The USB enclosure is OK but the hard drive is fried.

C). Both the enclosure and hard drive are fried.

If the hard drive is OK, would I be able to install the hard drive
into another enclosure, or is the Buslink 3.5" hard drive proprietary?

Any advice on this issue will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello. After reconfiguring his computer and peripherals, my brother
connected the wrong AC adapter brick to his Buslink external USB 2.0
40 GB hard drive. It now appears that the device is fried because he
couldn't get it to work even after attaching the correct Buslink AC
adapter. The power light will momentarily flash on, but nothing after
that. I'd like to know if someone can predict the electronic outcome
of his predicament:

A). The USB enclosure is fried but the hard drive is OK.

B). The USB enclosure is OK but the hard drive is fried.

C). Both the enclosure and hard drive are fried.

If the hard drive is OK, would I be able to install the hard drive
into another enclosure, or is the Buslink 3.5" hard drive proprietary?

Any advice on this issue will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

Not enough data. What output rating is the correct and the wrong
AC adapter? It is impossible to tell anything without this
information.

Arno

 

[Lady Chatterly]

A). The USB enclosure is fried but the hard drive is OK.
A.

B). The USB enclosure is OK but the hard drive is fried.

Adequacy of does search for responsive documents was adequate.

C). Both the enclosure and hard drive are fried.
C.

Any advice on this issue will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

Sheldon Martin snmartinadelphia?

--
Lady Chatterly

"You know Lady C, it really is sad that even as a bot, you have more
personality than nearly every AHM reg combined." -- Onideus Mad
Hatter

 

[kony]

Hello. After reconfiguring his computer and peripherals, my brother
connected the wrong AC adapter brick to his Buslink external USB 2.0
40 GB hard drive. It now appears that the device is fried because he
couldn't get it to work even after attaching the correct Buslink AC
adapter. The power light will momentarily flash on, but nothing after
that. I'd like to know if someone can predict the electronic outcome
of his predicament:

A). The USB enclosure is fried but the hard drive is OK.
Possible


B). The USB enclosure is OK but the hard drive is fried.

Also possible

C). Both the enclosure and hard drive are fried.

Also possible. This would be the most likely of the three
if the "wrong" adapter had significantly higher voltage and
drove one of the power inputs for the hard drive. Without
looking at the components it might be difficult to tell,
there are a number of ways to power one of those.

If the hard drive is OK, would I be able to install the hard drive
into another enclosure, or is the Buslink 3.5" hard drive proprietary?

It's not proprietary, you can install in another enclosure
providing the capacity of the drive doesn't exceed the
capacity of the encloser. Some enclosures didn't support
over 128GB, and I vaguely recall mention that some won't
support over 160GB, but that might be wrong.

Any advice on this issue will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

Remove the drive and try it in a desktop system. If it's
not showing up in the bios, check the jumpers. If it's
showing up but not useable in (Windows or whatever) run the
HDD manufacturer's diagnostics on it, available from their
(not Buslink's) website. If it passes diagnostics but still
isn't useable in the operating system you might try
formatting it.

As for the enclosure you might try connecting an old, known
working but non-valuable drive to it. Again consider that
is this is a semi-old enclosure you might need a drive
smaller than 128GB.

The other obvious alternative is to simply buy a new entire
enclosure with drive.

 

[PC]

Hello. After reconfiguring his computer and peripherals, my brother
connected the wrong AC adapter brick to his Buslink external USB 2.0
40 GB hard drive. It now appears that the device is fried because he
couldn't get it to work even after attaching the correct Buslink AC
adapter. The power light will momentarily flash on, but nothing after
that. I'd like to know if someone can predict the electronic outcome
of his predicament:

A). The USB enclosure is fried but the hard drive is OK.

B). The USB enclosure is OK but the hard drive is fried.

C). Both the enclosure and hard drive are fried.

If the hard drive is OK, would I be able to install the hard drive
into another enclosure, or is the Buslink 3.5" hard drive proprietary?

Any advice on this issue will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

Sorry to say 'Fried' electronics have rules of their own, any one of your
three senarios are possible.
If the device is at all 'critical' it would be best to toss it as devices
subject to electrical surges are liable to 'let go' anytime.

But have a happy xmas anyway
Paul.

 

[Moti]

So what is fried?

I've got money on the fact that its all fried.

Thats because both the enclosure and the disk get 5V inputs,
If 12V went into a 5V circuit with even 0.3Amp, its a goner

 

[M.L.]

Also possible


Also possible. This would be the most likely of the three
if the "wrong" adapter had significantly higher voltage and
drove one of the power inputs for the hard drive. Without
looking at the components it might be difficult to tell,
there are a number of ways to power one of those.



It's not proprietary, you can install in another enclosure
providing the capacity of the drive doesn't exceed the
capacity of the encloser. Some enclosures didn't support
over 128GB, and I vaguely recall mention that some won't
support over 160GB, but that might be wrong.


Remove the drive and try it in a desktop system. If it's
not showing up in the bios, check the jumpers. If it's
showing up but not useable in (Windows or whatever) run the
HDD manufacturer's diagnostics on it, available from their
(not Buslink's) website. If it passes diagnostics but still
isn't useable in the operating system you might try
formatting it.

As for the enclosure you might try connecting an old, known
working but non-valuable drive to it. Again consider that
is this is a semi-old enclosure you might need a drive
smaller than 128GB.

The other obvious alternative is to simply buy a new entire
enclosure with drive.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I'd like to first try seeing if the
data can be saved. I'm glad to know the hard drive is transferable so
I'll try placing a good unused drive into the enclosure. If the
enclosure is dead he'll just have to buy a new one and hope the hard
drive didn't die with it.

 

[M.L.]

Sorry to say 'Fried' electronics have rules of their own, any one of your
three senarios are possible.
If the device is at all 'critical' it would be best to toss it as devices
subject to electrical surges are liable to 'let go' anytime.

But have a happy xmas anyway
Paul.

And Happy Holidays to you too! I'm going to try some hardware trial
and error deduction as suggested in an earlier post before I give up.

 

[Moti]

Merry Christmas,
Ho ho ho

There is still a chance the disk is OK.

Thats in case the enclosure gets only one voltage input and then
performs DC-DC conversion internally. In this case the enclosure could
have shielded the disk from the incorrect voltage.

If you'd specify the input voltages and power inputs of the enclosure
power supply and the specs of incorrect PSU used, then you could get a
pretty accurate prediction.
These specifications are all written on the PSU.