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Discussion HotSwapping fried my 850 EVO

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Alexllte

Alexllte

Honorable
Nov 10, 2018
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When swapping hard drives, I generally plug the SATA power first, then the data ports.

In the diagram below, this is how I intend to connect my drive:
PSU > SATA Cable > SATA Power 1 (Main SSD) > SATA Power 2 (Second SSD to be powered) > SATA Power 3 > SATA Power 4
When I plugged in SATA Power 2, an intense and lung-tearing smoke came out of the 850 EVO in SATA Power 1, and I immediately shut down the computer.
Weirdly enough, the drive on SATA Power 2 is still functional, with 75% life shown in CrystalDiskInfo.

I am totally devastated... I have parts of the data backed up, but the majority remains on the drive.
I back up my data once a month, but the backup HDD starting malfunctioning with bad sectors and eventually died, and I never had the time to get a new one.
My family photos, valuable data, years of codes, and game dev projects, have all went with it; I am sad, disappointed, and angered by my stupid actions.

I hope I serve as a cautionary tale, either the PSU sent direct voltage to the SSD, or somehow the cable didn't work.
Don't be me, shut down your computer when you switch parts; I hope you learned something.
 
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Don't be him, and hot swap parts, period. Yes, they are hot swappable, but unless you have a dedicated hot swappable bay or enclosure intended for use in that way, it's a bad idea. With standard drives and cables, you are simply asking for a problem where there doesn't need to be one.

Even a lot of the supposedly "hot swappable" hardware that is dedicated to that purpose, doesn't work right, especially the ones that come integrated into a lot of older cases. In the era of cheap storage and external USB enclosures, there simply isn't any reason to take the risk with modern hardware. It literally takes a minute or two to shut down, make your connect or disconnect and reboot. If that is too long, then I don't know what to say.
 
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It appears that one of the transistors on the PCB has blown.

The PCB was partially fried, all four flash memory chips and the controller chip appears to be isolated from the burning, but the DRAM chip may be affected by the heat impact.

Images below:
0yYAAVX.jpg

IXd8NEH.jpg


The data recovery would be expensive, 1TB is a lot of data.
 
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I think it would probably be a REALLY good idea to figure out WHY that e-fuse blew in the first place, before trying to do anything that involves re-using the drive again though. Otherwise, it could simply do the same thing again except this time there'd be no fused circuit and something WORSE might actually end up damaged. Personally, I wouldn't try to use any device that blew it's protections like that. I'd simply discard it or if it was something that happened during the course of normal usage, I'd RMA it.
 
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Darkbreeze said:
I think it would probably be a REALLY good idea to figure out WHY that e-fuse blew in the first place, before trying to do anything that involves re-using the drive again though.
Click to expand...
I would suspect that it was due to an angled connection of the SATA power during the hotswap.
Some pin got connected, without the corresponding ground or whatever.

Just supposition, though.

In any case....see my sig pic below.
 
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Darkbreeze said:
I think it would probably be a REALLY good idea to figure out WHY that e-fuse blew in the first place, before trying to do anything that involves re-using the drive again though. Otherwise, it could simply do the same thing again except this time there'd be no fused circuit and something WORSE might actually end up damaged. Personally, I wouldn't try to use any device that blew it's protections like that. I'd simply discard it or if it was something that happened during the course of normal usage, I'd RMA it.
Click to expand...
"My family photos, valuable data, years of codes, and game dev projects, have all went with it; I am sad, disappointed ..."

The OP doesn't want a new drive as much as he wants his data.

I agree that the OP should measure the voltages at the SATA connector.

https://pinoutguide.com/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml
 
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Data recovery shops usually charge like wounded bulls for any SSD jobs. Most have never heard of an e-fuse. IMHO, the OP's best bet is to take the job to a real technician, ie one who understands electronics. The average DR guy is little more than a ROM jockey and headswap mechanic, with zero knowledge of electronics.

The proprietor of 300dollardatarecovery.com has bypassed an e-fuse on at least one occasion, on a different Samsung SSD, but only after I showed him how to do it.
 
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fzabkar said:
only after I showed him how to do it.
Click to expand...
Not that I doubt you, but usually when we make claims like that it is somewhat prudent to offer at least some minimal evidence of that being based fact. Just for the record, you understand.

I 100% get it that you are highly experienced in this area, but I also know that there have been a lot of experienced claimants in the past that turned out to be somewhat less than honest and claims are rather easier to make than they are to back up. Perhaps a link to a discussion with them on this, or something? Not that it particularly has relevance to this thread, but I for one would be interested in seeing that.

Basically, the commonly accepted attitude is "pics (Or links) or it didn't happen". LOL.
 
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