My Harddive's Power connector fried

[Mbudlite89]

Hello, The other day, i was changing my harddrives around, and i turned comptuer on and saw a spark. It was from a Sata to 4 pin converter, used for my sata hdd to get power with the 4 pin connectors of the PSU. Well The wire burnt and sparked. So now the harddrives power connector on it doesn;t work, any time i start the comptuer with it connected the comp starts for a second then shuts down. So in other words I cant get any power to it to recover the data off unles people know an alternative way to get power to it. I really need the data, it has all my tax info and stuff on it. And I don't want to risk and cant afford sending it to an "expert".

Can any1 help. the data connector works fine, and there is that 4 thin pins thing next to the data connector, not sure what its used for.

 

[COLGeek]

What make/model of HDD do you have? Does it have both a SATA power and the old MOLEX style power connectors on it (4-pins)? I think what you actually see are jumpers than can be used to configure the HDD for different uses.

Regardless, look at the SATA power connector itself. See if it appears to be damaged, in any way. If not, try connecting power to it with a different SATA power connection (or adapter, in your situation). Do not try to use your original connector/adapter.

Please let us know if that helps or not.

 

[fzabkar]

Let's see some detailed photos of the damage.

The most likely problem is a shorted TVS diode on either the +12V or +5V supply rail. If your Molex connector is miswired, then it may have applied +12V to the +5V input. If the protection diode has restricted the damage to itself, then the fix is to snip it out with flush cutters. The drive will work without it, but it will no longer have overvoltage protection on the affected supply. Therefore, examine your power plugs and confirm that the voltages are correct.

If you search for "TVS diode", you should find hundreds of case histories at various forums including Seagate, WD, deadharddrive.com, and HDD Guru.