External Hard Drive...........

[Gino]

I have, or should say…. HAD an external hard drive, Western Digital. A week or so ago, I plugged the wrong cord into it and evidently fried a board inside. I had it checked out and the hard drive is apparently still Okay, but I we can’t access it without the proper board. This is not a business drive at all, but contains things such as family photos, some music, my wife’s presentations and some other incidental things. So naturally, we never backed it up properly and it’s all things we really can’t get back anymore.

I don’t think I can afford to send it to one of those places that retrieve data, so I thought I’d ask here if anyone has some suggestions as to what to do.

It’s a:
Western Digital WD1200 Model #
WD1200BB-00GUA0
PCB# [sticker]
2061-001266-200
PCB# [PCB]
2060-001266-001 REV. AF
Any ideas……. ?? Gino

[hammered]

You can purchase a new enclosure from WD.

And if Im not mistaken, you can install it as a second drive and it will recognize it.

[njsigns]

Gino,

If you fried the board that supplies power to the drive (inside the case) chances are you can open the case, remove the hard drive and plug it into your computer as a slave drive. You can also just opt to purchase an external drive case for like $20.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1733195&Sku=M501-1182

Gene

[jiarby]

I hate external HDD's...
powersupplies are bad, and the chassis enclosures make the drives overheat.

Use them as transfer/short term storage, or offsite backups, but not as permanently attached (ie..always on and getting hot) storage.

[Gino]

We took it apart and tried spinning it on one of the computers here at the shop.... Won't start up. From what my guy tells me... its the board on the hard drive itself. No one is here anymore, so I'll see if any of this works Monday.

Thanks so far........

[njsigns]

I don't have a solution for you if that is the case, maybe someone else will. If it turns out you can't do anything with it, bust it open, there's one hell of a strong rare earth (http://www.dansdata.com/magnets.htm)magnet inside - at least you'll feel entertained for 10 minutes...

Good luck,
Gene

[jiarby]

I have seen a guy buy an identical HDD and swap the boards to bring a dead one back to life.

[Techman]

I have seen a guy buy an identical HDD and swap the boards to bring a dead one back to life.
Reply With Quote

happens all the time

[Gino]

That's exactly what we're trying to do. Switch out the boards. My guy has gone through 6 hard drives [so he says.....]. The one I have is from 2005 and WD discontinued making them.

My problem is finding a board that matches those numbers I posted in my first post.

Any ideas how to trace them down ??

[DARLAK]

ebay

that's how i found and fixed mine...

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=Western+Digital+WD1200

[w2csa]

Ditto Ebay, or Google the part#, maybe Craigs list too.
Good Luck

[flyinhawaiian968]

Ya know, I think I have a WD1200 layin' around at the shop! If you don't find one locally or on fleabay, PM me on Monday and I'll check to see what it is for ya. I'm pretty sure nothing is on the drive now (have probably 10 or more drives stacked up in the back of the shop, maybe one will work), as I usually wipe 'em then throw them in a box for emergency backups with a USB external case...

Chris