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Nevermind


Registered: 05/11/10
Posts: 2,189
Loc: Australia
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External HDD not working
#20406835 - 08/12/14 01:13 AM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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So I've had this external WD Elemens 1TB HDD for nearly 3 years now.
Last night I noticed that for some reason it's not working. It just doesn't appear to have any power going into it. I've uncased it and made sure everything's pushed in tight, nothing's loose etc. but still no luck. I even tried several different power points but that didn't help either.
Any ideas what the problem is? I'm assuming that it's just the powder supply has died.
What's the best option? Buy a SATA device things and hook it up to that? Or am I able to just buy a new power source for it? It says 12V DC IN where the power connection plugs in...
Any help would be hugely appreciated... I have all my photos from the past 10 years on here and would be horrified if they were lost. There's other important things on there too...
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: External HDD not working [Re: Nevermind]
#20407105 - 08/12/14 04:09 AM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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You could try the disk with another power adapter; 12VDC adapters are quite common and if you have just the tiniest bit of luck, you have one with a matching plug. Check your other equipment if something by any chance uses a similar power adapter. Otherwise, see if you can borrow one from a friend.
If that fails (and apparently there's something wrong with the electronics in the casing), you can try to hook up the disk itself (take it out of the enclosure) directly to a computer; these disks are generally standard SATA drives anyway. If you're lucky, it's FAT or NTFS formatted and you can read it directly from Windows. If you're less lucky, it's EXT3 or EXT4 formatted (or even more a more arcane logical volume partition table such as used by Seagate Central equipment and some WD equipment as well, IIRC) you may have to boot with a linux drive and see if you can mount the drive that way and copy your data.
Obviously, try to make sure you have your data on at least two drives and preferably on several locations to prevent data loss. Trusting a 3-year old mechanical hard drive as the only location on which your data reside is quite a risky thing. If there's one certainty with mechanical hard drives, it's that they fail after a couple of years.
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Nevermind


Registered: 05/11/10
Posts: 2,189
Loc: Australia
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Re: External HDD not working [Re: koraks]
#20407121 - 08/12/14 04:27 AM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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Yeah turns out you can buy the adapters pretty cheap on ebay so I'm gonna try that option first.
I'm hoping it's just that the adapter died, which I read is not all that uncommon.
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Nevermind


Registered: 05/11/10
Posts: 2,189
Loc: Australia
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Re: External HDD not working [Re: Nevermind]
#20410115 - 08/12/14 06:43 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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Yep, was the adapter. Found a new one from an old set of speakers and it works fine. All back up and running and no data loss!
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: External HDD not working [Re: Nevermind]
#20411640 - 08/13/14 03:16 AM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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Good to hear!
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