External hard drive usb short circuit?

Damo78

Honorable
Mar 29, 2012
3
0
10,510
Hello,
Last night I was plugging my WD Elements 1TB external drive back into my desktop where it usually lives.
The power to the drive was plugged in and the computer was on (probably not the correct way of doing it I know)
But as I was holding the usb cord and feeling for the port I felt some current flow from the comp case where my elbow had just touched through to my fingers holding the usb cord.
Once the usb was plugged in... nothing, nada, zip, the drive wasn't even spinning up.
I tried another power adaptor from another WD drive I have - same output values - and nothing.
I opened the case and removed the drive and tried it in the other drives case to see if I'd blown the power board inside the case, didn't spin up, and vice versa with the other drive in the non-working drives case and it spun up fine.
Is it possible that I've fried the disk and lost everything? Or could I have just blown a component on the PCB that connected directly to the disk, I didn't try pulling it off as it's held on by Torx screws and I usually take that as a do not remove sign.
I'm quite technically savvy, meaning I can fix anything given the correct info/instructions, but I have little idea exactly how a HD works or how to fix it. (always kinda just taken it for granted)
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks
 
Since I haven't had any replies thus far I thought I'd have a go myself.
I pulled off the torx screws and took a look at the pcb, everything appears fine, no scorch marks or plainly obvious signs of damage.
The IC's all look healthy too, but honestly I don't actually know any more about these things than I've learned recently looking around the forums and sites.
PCB number is 2060-701590-000 REV A and then some extra serials that I don't know the identities of.
But the number on the sticker on the other side is 2061-701590-A00 followed by more serials.
I really just need to know if the drive would be a lost cause, or if I could fix it and how. The thing was damn near full of stuff I don't want to lose, so even if I buy a new (bigger) drive and try and recover the data to the new one I'd be happy.
Any help at all would be appreciated.
Thanks again.
 
Hi Damo, I got the exact same problem here. Were you able to solve yours?
Thanks


 
@ManoMia, no sorry, I haven't been able to fix it yet. To be honest, with work and family I've put it aside for now. I'm hoping to get back to it in the next few weeks or so. If you have any more luck than I did keep me posted? And I'll def post here again and let you know if I solve it.
 
This is actually a very simple issue to fix. It is usually caused by a failsafe in the device that acts as a fuse such as you would see in a vehicle. These fuses short so that major components do not fail. It is as simple as finding another matching PCB and swapping the u12 or u5 chip onto the new working board. 9/10 your drive will now work flawlessly.