WD External hard disk failure...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay
  • Start date Start date
I got a multimeter from work today...checked all the voltages and
currents, its all perfect, uptill the point where it goes to the HDD :(
Click to expand...

I'm not quite clear on what you mean.
The voltage ON the HDD circuit board is out of an expected
value or the connector pins read incorrect?

If connector pins are off, unplug the drive and take another
reading. I would've expected that if drive were pulling
down the supply too much, it "should've" shut the supply
down. Then again I don't recall the specifics of the supply
you're currently using.

Are you still using that adaptable supply? If so, are you
sure it's of high enough current rating? Most of the ones
I"ve seen are 500mA, 1A at most which could be insufficient
to spin up a drive, or in other words if it's non-regulated
it might be pulling voltage down so low the logic is
non-functional and needs then reset... but not by unplugging
and replugging since the whole cycle repeats.

I cannot switch boards as I heard that WD drives have some information
specific for each drive embedded in those boards, dont know how far its
true, but i dont want to ruin my changes of recovering the data.

Ill try mounting this drive thro IDE on a PC and let know how it
goes...
Click to expand...


That is a good idea, probably the first thing I would've
done.
 
My 80g Western Digital external HD just failed, the same conditions as
Jay's. Red/green lights flash, hd not spinning. I was swapping hd's
around and I could have plugged the WD hd into my laptop power supply.
WD 12Vdc 2A, laptop power supply 19Vdc 3.16A.

Anyway, removed hd from enclosure and installed in 2 different machines
as slave. The machines would not boot. They stopped at master hd
recognition. The master was not identified and I received a boot disk
failure message. With WD hd removed the machines boot fine.

I am pretty sure the circuit board is fried. I have not removed it
from the hd to inspect the opposite side.

Any suggestions.

Thanks,

Jim
 
well, as I hear, its not easy to swap a WD drive as they have some
kinda information embedded in the circuitry for every individual drive.
It will indeed make data recovery tough.

Actually it was claimed by a data recovery website from UK. So I dont
wanna do that, so Ill not ruin my data recovery chances.
 
Welcome to the club, just for the start, WD's got a voltage regulator
and its got a fuse as well. So its not possible to overload the circuit
by anychance. Coz I tested them myself :)

So in essence its the drive thats dead or you have fried your
circuitry.
 
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