Toshiba P300 Hard Drive dead due to faulty power cable - is fix possible ?

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GrahamHS

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Dec 14, 2016
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After a Disk failure, and expensive data recovery, I bought 3 new Toshiba P300 Hard drives to rebuild my PC. All 3 drives appeared DOA, weren't detected by the BIOS and didn't work when put into an external caddy on my other machine.

it now seems a faulty power lead/ connector has fried them all, and was probably what killed the original too.

Question is can they be fixed, easily/cheaply ?
 
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Welcome to the TH Community, @GrahamHS!

Unfortunately, if the hard drives have been physically damaged (fried), there's nothing you can do to make them work. Hardware damage on a sensitive piece of hardware as a mechanical hard drive is really hard to execute 🙁 and most of the time the repairs are actually more expensive than a brand new drive. I'd advise you stay away from the problematic system that fried the HDDs and take it to a professional PC repair service to go through full diagnostics. If the hDDs are brand new, you should contact the manufacturer's or the reseller's customer support for assistance with an RMA procedure (if possible). Otherwise, you'd be better off getting replacement drives.

I hope you didn't have any important files onto the drives, or you will probably need the assistance of a professional data recovery company as well, which again won't be a cheap fix. My recommendation is to always keep at least one more copy of your files on a different drive (off-site as well as on-site). That's why keeping your data only on your system's internal HDDs, without an off-site backup could easily lead to data loss. 🙁

Hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

SuperSoph_WD
 
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Thanks, all good advice - the drives are brand new, so no data problem. I might be able to get them replaced RMA, but if not I've seen mention on here of replacing a diode (effectively a fuse?) on the PCB which I could get done easily IF someone can tell me which one it is !

 
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Hey there again, @GrahamHS!

Unfortunately, you can't do that and NOT void the warranty on the drives. Physically tampering with the hardware voids the limited warranty as it's stated in most manufacturers' warranty policies. Moreover, in order to do any of these procedures on a mechanical hard drive, you need a dust-free clean lab environment and the specific technical knowledge.
I'd definitely not advise you to try and replace anything on the HDDs by yourself as you won't be able to RMA them and get replacements. For more details, you can get in touch with the reseller's or the manufacturer's customer support!

Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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The first thing that comes to my mind is that if you are skilled enough to replace a diode, you must be skilled enough to test the circuit board to determine the point of failure. It could just be one TVS diode, but could also be a fuse, MCU, CPU and even a head preamp. But, if you are lucky, it will just be the TVS diode and/or fuse.

Technically, you killed the drives, so it is really not ethical or fair for you to RMA them. But, if the manufacturer permits it, then go for it.

Another alternative to fixing the PCB is to order replacement PCBs and just move the ROM chip from the defective board to the new replacement. The ROM is unique to the drive...so, don't damage it or the drive is done.
 
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I'm assuming I can't RMA them as technically I broke them, so warranty isn't an issue,

Presently I'm out of pocket by quite a bit, and don't have the working hard drives I need. Fortunately I have a friend who is an electronics engineer, he repairs stuff at this level all the time, but it would help if I could tell him which component it is likely to be, or have a schematic of the PCB. DR_Luke has mentioned the TVS Diode or fuse, which sound straight-forward to replace, anything else will no doubt be more complicated to diagnose and more expensive.
 
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Can you post a high resolution photo of both sides of one of the PCBs here?
 
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It won't void the warranty to remove the PCB and take pictures of it...if that is what you are concerned about.

 
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Unfortunately, I'm afraid you might not be able to RMA due to the fact that 'technically' it's not an issue related to a manufacturing defect. This has more to do with the fact that such issues are considered damage, deterioration or malfunction resulting from an accident and it's usually not covered by the HDD manufacturers. 🙁

However, in general, tampering in any way with the HDD hardware, including the PCB or even removing the sticker does void the warranty. I guess if yours cannot be RMA-ed due to the accident, you can definitely try swapping. My recommendation, though, is getting a new healthy hard drive instead. After all, such hardware is used to store your personal data. Even if you manage to get it repaired, always make sure you regularly back up the data from it elsewhere.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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I work on HDD's all day every day, and I can definitively say there is no possibly way that WD, Toshiba, or any other company can tell if the PCB was removed and put back on the drive. If you do repair work and soldering to it or replace it they could probably tell, but not just from unscrewing it and screwing it back on.
 
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