Question Overvolted an HDD and now it's unallocated

[nimonster]

I accidentally supplied 48v to a 12v external HDD. Heard a spark and smelled burning. Took it out of the plastic and plugged it directly to SATA. Disk management shows one partition as RAW and the other as unallocated now.

 

[USAFRet]

I accidentally supplied 48v to a 12v external HDD. Heard a spark and smelled burning. Took it out of the plastic and plugged it directly to SATA. Disk management shows one partition as RAW and the other as unallocated now.

Delete whatever partitions appear, reallocate the new space, format, give it a drive letter.
Recover the data from your backup.

 

[fzabkar]

WARNING: Do not write to your drive! DO NOT initialise it!

The problem is that the drive's enclosure was configured with a 4KB sector size.

See the following article for an explanation of your problem:

https://goughlui.com/2013/10/02/experiment-usb-to-sata-bridge-chips-and-2tb-drives/

In any case your data should be recoverable with DMDE. Can you show us DMDE's Partitions window?

https://dmde.com/

Alternative #1: Purchase a USB-SATA dock/enclosure/adapter which is configured with a 4KB sector size.

Alternative #2: Upload a photo of your USB-SATA bridge PCB. If the damage is confined to protection devices, then the PCB may be repairable by removing the protection.

 

[nimonster]

WARNING: Do not write to your drive! DO NOT initialise it!

The problem is that the drive's enclosure was configured with a 4KB sector size.

See the following article for an explanation of your problem:

https://goughlui.com/2013/10/02/experiment-usb-to-sata-bridge-chips-and-2tb-drives/

In any case your data should be recoverable with DMDE. Can you show us DMDE's Partitions window?

https://dmde.com/

Alternative #1: Purchase a USB-SATA dock/enclosure/adapter which is configured with a 4KB sector size.

Alternative #2: Upload a photo of your USB-SATA bridge PCB. If the damage is confined to protection devices, then the PCB may be repairable by removing the protection.

Wow!!! Thanks. That’s good news for me. I don’t have a backup because this drive is actually my backup drive. It is a 4 tb drive and DMDE is showing that there is an NTFS 4K format in it. See the screenshots attached of DMDE and the board that is part of the enclosure. .

free private image hosting

 

[USAFRet]

If this drive is your 'backup', then the data still lives on your main drive(s), correct?
If this is the only location for this data...that's not a 'backup'.

 

[nimonster]

It has outdated data in it for which it is the only location. But it is good for my records to recover it. Therefore I suppose it is not exactly a backup.

There is a little hole in one of the ICs near the power connector (see picture above post). The top of it says RT8284. Researching it reveals that it is a step down converter. It must have been damaged by the 48v. Should I look for this specific IC or try getting a whole new board?

I found this board on amazon, but it says nothing about 4k. Looks like the same thing though. But has different model number as the original is 4060-705149-000 rev A. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DLDSW20/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A2NUGUE6RQ1O3R&psc=1

 

[USAFRet]

OK, so not a backup.
Follow fzabkar's advice.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

There is a little hole in one of the ICs near the power connector

I have fried many ics with too much voltage causing that.

The whole board needs to be replaced. There is no way to tell whatever else may have died.

 

[fzabkar]

Your first problem is that your PC has a 32-bit LBA limitation. This is the reason that DMDE is detecting a reduced capacity of 1.8TB instead of 4TB. You need to install the latest SATA driver.

The good news is that your My Book (?) is not encrypted (is it an Elements model, or are you in a country where encryption is illegal?). If you purchase a replacement USB-SATA bridge board, I have no idea if it will play with your non-encrypted HDD. However, because there is no encryption, your HDD should work with any USB-SATA adapter/dock/enclosure which is configured with a 4KB sector size.

In any case, after you install the latest SATA driver, you can double-click the NTFS[4K] volume and expand the Root. Hopefully you will now see your file/folder structure. The free version of DMDE will allow you to recover a limited number of files. I don't know whether Recuva will be able to see them, but you could try.

Alternatively, there is a way to "fix" your bridge PCB, assuming that the damage is confined to the 5V regulator. All you would need to do would be to snip the pins of the regulator, remove it, and then run separate +12V, +5V and Gnd wires from your PC's PSU. But that's something that requires a little technical ability.

BTW, you can capture a screenshot to the clipboard using the PrtSc key on your keyboard. Then paste the clipboard contents (Ctrl V) into your preferred image editor.