Gaming Is external drive dead?

[yusuo]

Over mums house atm and bought my external with me, but forgot the power lead.

In a moment of insanity I thought hey ill stick the laptop charger in my external. Bad idea, after a few seconds i got a weird smell and a little smoke.

I unplugged it straight and stripped the hard drive out of the caddy, the hard drive doesnt smell its only the little board you plug the usb lead into and connects to the hard drive.

I've bought a new caddy off ebay, im just wondering in any likelyhood is the drive still in gunna work, I know no-one knows for sure, not even I do but what are the chances.

I just dont like the fact I might of lost 900gb of data, including photos that cant be replaced

 

[shadowmanwkp]

Well if you're certain that the disk itself is readable, you can transplant the platters from one drive to another, it's a bit tricky and it will void warranty on both disks, but you can at least try to save your data at least this way. Take in account that you have to have two identical hard drives, or else it will not work.

 

[Originality]

Sounds like the USB adaptor (which is all the external enclosure really is) got fried. The drive itself should be safe. Give it a try with the replacement, or just shove it in a computer. I prefer the latter, but my case has space for another 12 drives.

 

[exangel]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119244 -- Not suitable as a permanent case, but may be better than installing it internally for some, for what it's worth. A favorite for file recovery without the hassle of a semi-permanent case (caddy) setup. Compatible with older drives, too.