SATA fail

clsCorwin

So I had a Maxtor 160 gig SATA drive with a bunch of data on it sit disconnected for a bit while my computer was down and out. Bought an enclosure for it to pull the data. I connected everything, went to power it up, and after a sec, it powers off... and I have smoke coming out of this thing.

So, fuck, and any chance in hell my data can be recovered?

cooljammer00

You could try that freezer trick.

clsCorwin

freezer trick?

Bendery It Like Beckham

sounds like a short. Or you some how put electricity to a place it shouldn't have been put and burned out some components. How was the smell? Like burnt toast? I forget what a shorted circuit board smells like to be honest..

matt has a problem

If it's the power supply that died on the enclosure, maybe. Try putting the drive back in your computer. If it's the actual board on the HDD itself, aside from doing a platter pull or sending it off to a data recovery service, you're kind of SOL unfortunately.

The freezer trick (putting it in a ziplock bag, sticking it in the freezer for ~10 minutes) only works in click-of-death situations unfortunately, and even then not always.

clsCorwin

Ok update. Finally pulled the hard drive out of the enclosure and something on the board (small black square .2cm x .3cm x .2cm in dimension.

So, do I have any options of getting my data off this thing without paying $texas and sending it to a professional lab?

Beazle

If you can find the exact same drive with the exact same firmware on it you can swap the board on the dead one with the working one. Done it a few times but is was usually with drives I've bought at the same time.

clsCorwin

Did you lose any data from the damage?

ProPatriaMori

Beazle wrote: »

If you can find the exact same drive with the exact same firmware on it you can swap the board on the dead one with the working one. Done it a few times but is was usually with drives I've bought at the same time.

This is what I would try. Just try to order the same model drive from somewhere.

mechaThor

Isn't the board you are talking about only something to convert the USB to a SATA interface and allow you to plug it into a wall? If so, then can't you just grab an extra SATA cable and plug it into your mobo directly?

clsCorwin

No, the board I'm talking about is the one on the drive itself. And yes, I'm going to go with the above method, which bring me to another question: How do I tell what firmwave the harddrive has? Bunch of stuff on the drive, but nothing that says firmware.

Beazle

You can't from the board usually. However, most drives have a date code on them that tells when they were made. Find a drive that has the same date and you should be good to go.

clsCorwin

Found this for future reference: www.firmwarefinder.com

too bad they don't have the board I need in stock right now

and found a board on ebay, sweet.