External hard drive storage repaired. Sata to 2.0 USB
An old man brought this to my shop for repair. He explained that he powered up the device and he could smell something burning. He brought the power supply that he used for that hard drive and when I looked at it, it did not match the power specification on the hard drive. . He used 16 volts and he did not pay attention to the voltage polarity. He used a power supply with the positive volt to ground and it should have been positive to the hot pin of the power jack.
It was easy to open. Just slide the hard drive and the power board out and you will see what inside of it.
The moment I slide the whole thing out, I saw a bulged capacitor near the power jack. It was 680uf/16 volts.
I was expecting something like that since the voltage polarity were reversed.
Here is a closer look of this bad capacitor and of the whole power board. This board was also attached to the fan and the actual hard drive. Take a look
I have already replaced the bulged capacitor. I have used 1000uf/16 volts.
If you look at the arrow, you could see the voltage rating of this hard drive. It was 12 volts and just a little bit under 1 amp. I have used 12 and 1 amp transformer and the moment I powered up the hard drive, the fan started to spin. It was working fine.
I have plugged it though a USB cable to my laptop and seems like everything was working fine. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of it.
The green light came on and the computer recognized the hard drive. I was able to import and export information to the hard drive and off the hard drive.
The customer came into my shop while I was testing it (that is why I could not take a photo of the hard drive working) and was happy that his drive was working again.
I have explained to the customer what he did wrong and it seems like he was accepting it very well. Mission accomplished.
This article was prepared for you by Waleed Rishmawi, one of our ‘Master Authors’ and currently working in the Bethlehem area of Palestine repairing electrical and electronic equipment.
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Robert
July 21, 2014 at 9:10 pm
Good job Waleed. The customer is lucky that he didn't cause more damage to the hard drive.
Waleed Rishmawi
July 22, 2014 at 5:27 pm
Robert: thank you my friend.
Humberto
July 22, 2014 at 9:17 pm
Hi Robert, not only the HDD could be damaged, but the PCB too
Taboria
April 9, 2016 at 7:02 pm
I'm very happy for this
Abdul Haleem
July 22, 2014 at 7:18 am
Yes Waleed,
Koreans use sometimes positive polarity as ground.
Thanks for the article
Waleed Rishmawi
July 22, 2014 at 5:28 pm
Abdul: you are most welcome.
Humberto
July 22, 2014 at 9:22 pm
Russians use positive ground too. I checked a french electronic device years ago, and it had positive ground too.
yogesh panchal
July 22, 2014 at 12:54 pm
waleed,
thanks for sharing.
Waleed Rishmawi
July 22, 2014 at 9:04 pm
Yogesh: you are most welcome
Humberto
July 22, 2014 at 9:24 pm
Good repair, Mr. Waleed. Keep up
Raymundo Saura
September 14, 2014 at 9:35 am
thanks sir great one for us very informative
asanka
July 24, 2015 at 12:49 am
hi, iam asanka from sri laka,
pls tel me - why some HDDs brought noise sound (cliking sound)? how to repair it.
thanks.