Is it possible to smoke a hard drive? \ VOGONS

Is it possible to smoke a hard drive?

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by cj_reha

Posted on 2016-11-09, 00:36

cj_reha Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 506
Joined: 2016-11-03, 02:09
Location: Virginia, USA

So I think I just did a bad and may have just killed an old Conner 540MB hard drive.

So basically I bought it off of eBay and before putting it into my DOS build I wanted to try it to see if it worked and to see if there were any files on it, since the listing just described it as "tested and working" (it was like 10 bucks, super cheap so even if it didn't work i wouldn't have lost that much money). So I opened up my custom 98 build, disconnected the secondary hard drive and hooked it up. I turned the computer on and the hard drive started smoking. Quickly, I flipped the switch on the back of the PSU off and disconnected it quickly. A basic inspection reveals nothing, the board seems to be undamaged? I'm scared to try to turn it on again in fear of damaging it more, since it's quite an old hard drive 😵

I thought maybe the PSU had had a power surge or killed the molex connector, so I temporarily hooked up the second hard drive again and voila, it span up. So the molex is perfectly fine. If this helps, the PSU is a RaidMax RX-500S (500 watt ATX12v)

I'm really scared right now that I killed a sort of rare, vintage hard drive I was gonna use in my dos build 😢

Is it possible to fry old hardware with too much power? I thought that even mid 2000s PSUs had overload protections... 😕

Attachments

Filename

IMG_5282.JPG

File size

980.82 KiB

Views

924 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception
Filename

IMG_5281.JPG

File size

767.87 KiB

Views

924 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
My YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJYB_ZDsIzXGZz6J0txgCA

Reply 1 of 19, by sprcorreia

Posted on 2016-11-09, 00:43

sprcorreia Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 715
Joined: 2010-11-15, 01:40
Location: Porto, Portugal

For a second you got me worried...

Reply 2 of 19, by cj_reha

Posted on 2016-11-09, 00:45

cj_reha Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 506
Joined: 2016-11-03, 02:09
Location: Virginia, USA

sprcorreia wrote:
For a second you got me worried... […]
Show full quote
For a second you got me worried...

Ha, good one

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
My YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJYB_ZDsIzXGZz6J0txgCA

Reply 3 of 19, by sprcorreia

Posted on 2016-11-09, 00:52

sprcorreia Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 715
Joined: 2010-11-15, 01:40
Location: Porto, Portugal

Ok, now regarding the hard drive.

It was probably some component failure in the HDD. Old stuff, It happens. Don't use it anymore unless you want to risk some fireworks.

Reply 4 of 19, by brostenen

Posted on 2016-11-09, 00:59

brostenen Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 6654
Joined: 2014-05-07, 21:13
Location: Northern Jutland, Denmark.

Two components close to the power connector looks out of place.
Or should they look like that?

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 5 of 19, by sprcorreia

Posted on 2016-11-09, 01:08

sprcorreia Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 715
Joined: 2010-11-15, 01:40
Location: Porto, Portugal

brostenen wrote:
Two components close to the power connector looks out of place.
Or should they look like that?

Good catch. Comparing to this photo maybe the HDD was (badly) repaired?

conner-cfs540a-540mb-3.5-ide-hard-drive-22.18.jpg

Reply 6 of 19, by cj_reha

Posted on 2016-11-09, 01:27

cj_reha Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 506
Joined: 2016-11-03, 02:09
Location: Virginia, USA

sprcorreia wrote:
Good catch. Comparing to this photo maybe the HDD was (badly) repaired? […]
Show full quote
brostenen wrote:
Two components close to the power connector looks out of place.
Or should they look like that?

Good catch. Comparing to this photo maybe the HDD was (badly) repaired?

That's a very real possibility.

Attachments

Filename

IMG_5307.JPG

File size

721.81 KiB

Views

875 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
My YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJYB_ZDsIzXGZz6J0txgCA

Reply 7 of 19, by Jo22

Posted on 2016-11-09, 01:33

Jo22 Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 9689
Joined: 2009-12-13, 07:06
Location: Europe

I don't know anything about this HDD, but generally speaking, some newer models do have protective circuits.
Again, I don't know anything about this model. It was just a thought.

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 8 of 19, by sprcorreia

Posted on 2016-11-09, 01:50

sprcorreia Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 715
Joined: 2010-11-15, 01:40
Location: Porto, Portugal

That little black unmarked square... Is it firmly attached to the pcb?

Reply 9 of 19, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2016-11-09, 02:52

Anonymous Coward Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 4833
Joined: 2008-03-20, 05:37
Location: Shandong, China

Once I was building a custom Y-cable power splitter, and I somehow managed to reverse the 5V and 12V lines (and grounds). That will definitely smoke a harddrive....at least the circuit board part of it.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 10 of 19, by cj_reha

Posted on 2016-11-09, 04:12

cj_reha Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 506
Joined: 2016-11-03, 02:09
Location: Virginia, USA

Anonymous Coward wrote:
Once I was building a custom Y-cable power splitter, and I somehow managed to reverse the 5V and 12V lines (and grounds). That will definitely smoke a harddrive....at least the circuit board part of it.

It's not the molex, since it spins up the hard drive in the 98 machine perfectly fine. maybe different arrangement?

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
My YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJYB_ZDsIzXGZz6J0txgCA

Reply 11 of 19, by kaputnik

Posted on 2016-11-09, 06:59

kaputnik Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 814
Joined: 2016-01-12, 11:00
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

The drive can't fry because you connected it to a PSU being capable of delivering a high amperage alone. As long as the power source delivers the correct voltage(s) and the drive's rated amperage or higher (which it probably does since your other drive works fine with the same PSU), there must be some problem with the drive itself for that to happen. If the drive works as supposed, it'll just take whatever power it needs and leave the rest so to speak.

From the pic, it looks like the smaller of the two dislocated components brostenen caught might be from somewhere completely else on the board. I just can't see any place where it would go right there at the connector (edit: a look at the photo sprcorreia posted confirms it). MIght even be completely foreign. A short right at the Molex connector will lead all available power at the same, and might generate enough heat to melt solder closely and smoke.

If I were you, I'd resolder the larger dislocated component, thoroughly investigate where the smaller one might come from, and which way it's supposed to be connected if it's not a foreign object. When you figured that out, and resoldered it if not determined to be something foreign, I'd do a double check for eventual unwanted solder bridging around the Molex connector, and then try powering the drive with a spare PSU I didn't care much about. If it spins up and runs a while without problems, it's good for a test in a computer that you're willing to risk. There's always a chance a malfunctioning device takes other stuff with it.

It could of course have been caused by a bad component too, and then there's not much to do if you don't have considerable skills in faultfinding electronics. The smaller dislocated component looking completely out of place where it is makes me believe more in it causing a short though.

Reply 12 of 19, by stamasd

Posted on 2016-11-09, 12:50

stamasd Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2029
Joined: 2014-08-31, 19:59
Location: Connecticut

Once I managed to insert the molex power connector upside down in a HDD... burned both the drive and the PSU. :p

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 13 of 19, by konc

Posted on 2016-11-09, 15:49

konc Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2266
Joined: 2013-01-14, 15:09
Location: Greece

Unless the drive was not really tested and was lying somewhere ending up completely stuck. (yes, this has happened more than once). Did you hear it spin at all? If yes, this is not the case.

Reply 14 of 19, by Jepael

Posted on 2016-11-09, 17:44

Jepael Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1195
Joined: 2005-06-15, 19:28
Location: Finland

To me the "dislocated components" look like a factory mod to move the capacitor slightly to add room for a filter inductor on a Y1 version board.

The other picture is from Y5 version board which may be redesigned regarding this issue so the filter at supply connector is not needed.

I don't see what has smoked though. It could be one of the black tantalum caps as it looks a bit bubbly and tantalums do tend to blow up.

Reply 15 of 19, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2016-11-09, 19:02

h-a-l-9000 Offline

Rank DOSBox Author

Rank: DOSBox Author
Posts: 4511
Joined: 2005-02-23, 00:14

The smoke could also originate from the other side of the PCB, maybe a trace.

1+1=10

Reply 16 of 19, by Unknown_K

Posted on 2016-11-09, 22:01

Unknown_K Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1307
Joined: 2013-04-22, 18:59
Location: Youngstown, OH USA

Could just be a tantalum cap giving up the ghost. I would take the board off and look on the other side from something that got hot.

I smoked a Plextor SCSI CDROM drive over a decade ago because the molex power plug actually went in the wrong way, pissed me off.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 17 of 19, by candle_86

Posted on 2016-11-09, 22:20

candle_86 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2799
Joined: 2010-08-06, 01:04
Location: Fort Worth, Republic of Texas

I've also seen this from dust buildup was it cleaned properly before you hooked it up

Reply 18 of 19, by devius

Posted on 2016-11-09, 22:55

devius Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 808
Joined: 2014-10-12, 10:27
Location: Portugal

Usually when tantalum caps fail, they blow up very audibly and spectacularly. If this was just a smell of burnt plastic/electronics and a puff of smoke it was most likely a resistor or an IC being pushed way beyond its limits, probably by a fault somewhere else.

Reply 19 of 19, by chinny22

Posted on 2016-11-10, 15:11

chinny22 Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 5125
Joined: 2011-08-26, 12:02
Location: Australian but living in the UK for now

Good chance it happened bouncing around in shipping, bouncing around more then normal.
Was "tested" months ago and in that time has died.
It was just its time.

Could of been any number or combination of those things, If other drives are fine I would blame the drive more then yourself

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches