Overvoltage on WD My Book, blown USB-SATA bridge

[Tech_Joe]

I plugged in the wrong power supply to a WD My Book Elite 1TB drive and blew something on the USB-SATA bridge. It looks like it's labeled U5. The hard drive spins up fine when I have it connected via a USB-SATA adapter but all the data is encrypted so I can't access it. Does anyone know if I can repair the blown part of the USB bridge? Or do I need to find a like replacement to get this to work again?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to Tom's Hardware, Tech_Joe!

I'm truly sorry to hear about your WD My Book failure. 🙁 Indeed, the external incorporates a hardware encryption which makes the data on the HDD unaccessible without the enclosure. Your chance to access it without the help of a professional data recovery company would be using an IDENTICAL WD My Book enclosure.
However, I'd recommend you to contact our tech support and share your issue with them. Once you tell them your model & serial number, they should be able to provide you with more details, so that you know what you are looking for in the identical enclosure.
WD Tech Support Contacts: http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en
Here are our Data Recovery Partners worldwide as well: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=IFrttl

Hope this was helpful! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Tech_Joe]

It seems REALLY dumb for WD not to put any warnings at all on their units or in their literature about this. Had they done that I believe people would be extra careful with the power. All it takes is a freaking sticker near the power input! It is so easy to mistake power supplies and plug it into this unit. We buy these units to store valuable information on them so for something as simple as this you think WD would put some sort of safeguards in place to keep this from happening. Sure I made the mistake but to design a unit that can so easily fail blows my mind. I wouldn't be so upset if it didn't cause such a possible catastrophic result.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

It seems REALLY dumb for WD not to put any warnings at all on their units or in their literature about this. Had they done that I believe people would be extra careful with the power. All it takes is a freaking sticker near the power input! It is so easy to mistake power supplies and plug it into this unit. We buy these units to store valuable information on them so for something as simple as this you think WD would put some sort of safeguards in place to keep this from happening. Sure I made the mistake but to design a unit that can so easily fail blows my mind. I wouldn't be so upset if it didn't cause such a possible catastrophic result.

I would have hoped everyone knew to check it was the right power supply. That's only been the case for, oh, the last two or three decades.

They do have protection. Silicon Avalanche diodes and a fuse. You need a soldering iron to bypass it once they blow.

 

[Tech_Joe]

I would have hoped everyone knew to check it was the right power supply. That's only been the case for, oh, the last two or three decades.

They do have protection. Silicon Avalanche diodes and a fuse. You need a soldering iron to bypass it once they blow.

I have a soldering iron and work with electronics so how do I bypass the diodes and fuse on the PCB USB-SATA bridge? I know that my MOSFET (APM4532) was fried so is that what needs to be bypassed? That's at least the only visable damage that I can see on the board.

 

[ccampy]

You expect then to design a device that rubs on 12v power to have protection for probably 230v power that you connected it to

 

[Tech_Joe]

I connected 24v DC to it not 230v

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I have a soldering iron and work with electronics so how do I bypass the diodes and fuse on the PCB USB-SATA bridge? I know that my MOSFET (APM4532) was fried so is that what needs to be bypassed? That's at least the only visable damage that I can see on the board.

Damn. If a MOSFET got fried, they didn't do the protection well enough.

Sorry.