I had this old drive plugged into my PS2 that I'd almost forgotten about. 6 months of inactivity later I noticed the console was asking to format the drive, so I invested in an IDE to USB connector & power supply to try and salvage what I could off it first. Lucky me, the drive started smoking almost as soon as I had turned on the power. So it looks as if the data is gone for good this time, unless an exact replacement control board can be found.
However, there is still the question of what could have caused this. I'm inclined to believe the drive was on the way out anyway, but I don't want to risk burning another HDD just to find out if it was the power supply that was at fault. There is also the question of whether the PS2 connector could have damaged it or been damaged due to connecting to a faulty device.
Finally, I did manage to get a lot of the disgusting brown liquid that came out of this thing on my skin in the course of cleaning it off, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult to wash away. Are there any dangers associated with chemicals coming out of these devices? It certainly smelled bad.
I've included some pictures prior to the cleanup so you can see where the damage was:
However, there is still the question of what could have caused this. I'm inclined to believe the drive was on the way out anyway, but I don't want to risk burning another HDD just to find out if it was the power supply that was at fault. There is also the question of whether the PS2 connector could have damaged it or been damaged due to connecting to a faulty device.
Finally, I did manage to get a lot of the disgusting brown liquid that came out of this thing on my skin in the course of cleaning it off, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult to wash away. Are there any dangers associated with chemicals coming out of these devices? It certainly smelled bad.
I've included some pictures prior to the cleanup so you can see where the damage was: