Hard Drives not getting detected after a PSU failure


Khalid

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Hi guys,

 

I am going a bit crazy, not sure if I lost everything or not.

 

I was preclearing a new disk and I smell a bit of a burn smell and I saw that my server was shut down. PSU seems to have died, I tried using another one that my brother bought because he is building a PC soon. With that PSU, I was able to boot the server. No disks are getting detected, I tried putting 2 of these disks in my Windows 10 computer to see if I will see but I didn't see them at all with the Disk Management tools. I tried putting one on my existing Windows 10 Hard Drive on my server and it did not detect the disk. I tried putting that disk back in my Windows 10 and I don't see it anymore...

 

Any help would be nice, right now I think it's over...

 

Thanks. 

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Damn, this really suck...

 

Any idea what is killing drive that I am adding to Server?

 

Had this ever happened before to anyone else?

 

Lost 9 drives that were on the server (3 still on warranty) and another I was adding I could return and another one out of warranty from my PC.

 

Thank you.

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57 minutes ago, Khalid said:

Any idea what is killing drive that I am adding to Server?

If the motherboard was also damaged then it could be applying excessive voltages to the drive electronics and frying them.

 

It is possible that drives could be recovered if their drive electronics can be replaced, but that is a non-trivial (and expensive) exercise to go through.

 

You may well find that the drives warranty does not cover the power supply damaging the drives!

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12 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Do the power supplies that you are using have modular cables? If so, did you keep the cables with the supplies that they came with, or did you just swap the supplies and leave the cables in place?

 

Many times they are pinned differently at the power supply end of the cable.

The old one was semi modular and the new one was modular. Yes, I used the new power cable, cpu cable and motherboard cable from the new PSU, I believe I used the old cable to attach to the part where it was written sata 1 and sata 2.

 

Thanks.

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2 minutes ago, Khalid said:

I believe I used the old cable to attach to the part where it was written sata 1 and sata 2.

If you used the cable from the old PSU to attach your disk to the new PSU then it seems likely that you fried them. There have been reports of replacing the electronics on the disks to get them working again to recover the data. There is a circuit board on the outside of a disk with the connections on it. It would have to be replaced with the same model.

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2 minutes ago, Benson said:

I still don't understand why only disk burn if PSU failure. Pls ref. below post

 

 

It wasn't the PSU failure in the title that did it, it was using wrong cables on another PSU after the original PSU failed.

 

Actually somewhat similar to the post you linked and there might be some good info there for the OP.

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1 hour ago, trurl said:

It wasn't the PSU failure in the title that did it, it was using wrong cables on another PSU after the original PSU failed.

 

Actually somewhat similar to the post you linked and there might be some good info there for the OP.

Yeah, this might have been my issue, I changed the Power cable, the cable were it was written CPU and the Cable were it was written motherboard. i didn't pay attention to the one were I had to connect to Sata1 and Sata2 and used the one that were connect to the server. Lesson learned... Costly mistake... 

 

I just want to thanks everyone for chiming in, at least I will try to never do this mistake again.

 

I will take quick look a donordrives. If you guys know any Canadian alternatives for parts or repair service. Let me know. Thanks. I probably won't do it because of cost, but I am just curious.

 

 

Edited by Khalid
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On 12/12/2018 at 4:08 AM, Khalid said:

Damn, this really suck...

 

Any idea what is killing drive that I am adding to Server?

 

Had this ever happened before to anyone else?

 

Lost 9 drives that were on the server (3 still on warranty) and another I was adding I could return and another one out of warranty from my PC. 

 

Thank you.

 

Are these drives of the same make and model?  Do you have a list of the drives?  I have swapped working logic boards onto otherwise dead drives in order to recover data, so it can be done.  This is not a 100% guarantee, but some recovered data is better than no recovered data.  You'll still have to replace the drives with (new) known-working drives, so this is going to be expensive and time consuming.  FYI

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On 12/13/2018 at 2:21 PM, ufopinball said:

 

Are these drives of the same make and model?  Do you have a list of the drives?  I have swapped working logic boards onto otherwise dead drives in order to recover data, so it can be done.  This is not a 100% guarantee, but some recovered data is better than no recovered data.  You'll still have to replace the drives with (new) known-working drives, so this is going to be expensive and time consuming.  FYI

 

HGST_HDN726060ALE614 (x2)

HGST_HDS5C4040ALE630

ST4000DM000-1F2168 (x4)

ST4000DM005-2DP166

HGST_HDN726050ALE610

STBV5000100

 

--------------------------

 

Reading on the PCB swap, I read a bit on HDDZone that even if its works, it would not be a permanent solution, it's only temporary to recover data?

 

The hardware team at my brother workplace said that maybe they can open the drives and check if they could just replace the diodes. He said there is a guy that is pretty good with soldering if I need it.

 

Let says I can fix one drive, would I be able to start the array with one drive or is there a minimum number of working drives that I need?

 

For the warranty, what would be my chances? 0%? What would happened if I send it to them and they refused, will they send me back the drives?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Edited by Khalid
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If all hdd connect with power plug haven't shutdown immediately during power on, then more serious issue was happen.

 

BTW a simple check (by mulitmeter) you can do, pls found 2 diode near power plug, 5v and 12v, a negative mark was connect to power +, if you got 5v or 12v on diode negative mark (N means negative, P is positive), then you can ignore problem on the diode. You need further troubleshoot.

 

If not success, then you need donor board, swap board usually won't work  https://www.donordrives.com/pcb-replacement-guide (this is ref. only and not up to date)

 

1.png.c81d97994fb552b7cc343aaff4cd43c1.png

 

soldering-rom-pcb-u12-chip_fix.JPG

Edited by Benson
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On 12/16/2018 at 10:37 AM, Khalid said:

 

HGST_HDN726060ALE614 (x2)

HGST_HDS5C4040ALE630

ST4000DM000-1F2168 (x4)

ST4000DM005-2DP166

HGST_HDN726050ALE610

STBV5000100

 

--------------------------

 

Reading on the PCB swap, I read a bit on HDDZone that even if its works, it would not be a permanent solution, it's only temporary to recover data?

 

The hardware team at my brother workplace said that maybe they can open the drives and check if they could just replace the diodes. He said there is a guy that is pretty good with soldering if I need it.

 

Let says I can fix one drive, would I be able to start the array with one drive or is there a minimum number of working drives that I need?

 

For the warranty, what would be my chances? 0%? What would happened if I send it to them and they refused, will they send me back the drives?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Looks like you have quite the variety of drives, so that complicates things.  Here's how I would proceed.

 

1)  Build a new array, ultimately your goal will be a solid, reliable array.  Don't reuse any of your old drives since we are going to try an extract data.  Note that with this method of recovery, I don't think you can rely on any drive giving you back 100%, so if you have to do a rebuild on any given drive (assuming you fully recover that many drives), I don't know how reliable your rebuilt drive would be, either.  You're welcome to try it.  If not, maybe start with 1 Parity and 1 Data and work your way up from there.  I'm assuming you know which of the old drives are data and which were parity.  This method recovers the data treating the old array drives as JBOD.

 

2)  Take say the STBV5000100, buy another exact model drive.  Last time, I bought a used working drive off E-Bay.  Test the newer drive, make sure it works and is reliable.  Replace the bad drive's board with the new drive's board.  Plug the bad drive into the server and use something like Unassigned Devices to mount it, then see how much data you can copy off of it.  Once you have extracted as much data as you can, unmount and remove your bad drive.  Swap the controller boards back.  Bad drive goes on the shelf in case you need it for further recovery.  The newer drive can be pre-cleared and added to the array.  Repeat this step for all drives.

 

Something I heard was that reallocated sectors are recorded somewhere on the controller board.  I heard it quite a long time ago, so I don't know if it is/was true.  If it is, your recovery may involve accessing some incorrect sectors, which is why I think the data isn't guaranteed to be 100%, but again anything is better than 0%.  This should also be non-destructive, so you could still use other methods to recover your data if you like.

 

I have not heard of the diode fix, nor have I ever attempted to alter a controller board in any way.  All I have done is a straight board swap, and hope that any data losses are livable.  Thankfully, this isn't something that I have had to do regularly, but it has worked once or twice.

 

PS: Dunno about the warranty, but I'd skip the soldering iron if you intend to go this route.

 

Edited by ufopinball
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10 hours ago, ufopinball said:

Looks like you have quite the variety of drives, so that complicates things.  Here's how I would proceed.

 

1)  Build a new array, ultimately your goal will be a solid, reliable array.  Don't reuse any of your old drives since we are going to try an extract data.  Note that with this method of recovery, I don't think you can rely on any drive giving you back 100%, so if you have to do a rebuild on any given drive (assuming you fully recover that many drives), I don't know how reliable your rebuilt drive would be, either.  You're welcome to try it.  If not, maybe start with 1 Parity and 1 Data and work your way up from there.  I'm assuming you know which of the old drives are data and which were parity.  This method recovers the data treating the old array drives as JBOD.

 

2)  Take say the STBV5000100, buy another exact model drive.  Last time, I bought a used working drive off E-Bay.  Test the newer drive, make sure it works and is reliable.  Replace the bad drive's board with the new drive's board.  Plug the bad drive into the server and use something like Unassigned Devices to mount it, then see how much data you can copy off of it.  Once you have extracted as much data as you can, unmount and remove your bad drive.  Swap the controller boards back.  Bad drive goes on the shelf in case you need it for further recovery.  The newer drive can be pre-cleared and added to the array.  Repeat this step for all drives.

 

Something I heard was that reallocated sectors are recorded somewhere on the controller board.  I heard it quite a long time ago, so I don't know if it is/was true.  If it is, your recovery may involve accessing some incorrect sectors, which is why I think the data isn't guaranteed to be 100%, but again anything is better than 0%.  This should also be non-destructive, so you could still use other methods to recover your data if you like.

 

I have not heard of the diode fix, nor have I ever attempted to alter a controller board in any way.  All I have done is a straight board swap, and hope that any data losses are livable.  Thankfully, this isn't something that I have had to do regularly, but it has worked once or twice.

 

PS: Dunno about the warranty, but I'd skip the soldering iron if you intend to go this route.

Cool thank you for your input.

 

From what my brother and the people he work for, told me. If the diode has work as intented, it would have sacrifice itself to save the board. I also saw some video that people were using and hard drive without diodes to copy/mirror the data for recovery. From what they told me, running a hard drive without diode is a bit unsafe because, there would not be anymore second chance.

 

https://community.wd.com/t/hdd-tvs-diode-faq/14692

 

I will take some time to think about it, I only lend 2 drives to my brother so he can check them out with the people he work with and I am trying to RMA my original PSU. Also, I am doing investigation on the diodes replacements and PCB replecements.

 

Not getting my data back is not the end of the world, but there are some stuff that if I could get back, it would be nice. My ideal scenario, I could replace the diodes, copy my data that I care more about on something else and use these old drives this until they die (or better if they don't).

 

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On 12/16/2018 at 11:09 PM, Benson said:

If all hdd connect with power plug haven't shutdown immediately during power on, then more serious issue was happen.

 

BTW a simple check (by mulitmeter) you can do, pls found 2 diode near power plug, 5v and 12v, a negative mark was connect to power +, if you got 5v or 12v on diode negative mark (N means negative, P is positive), then you can ignore problem on the diode. You need further troubleshoot.

 

If not success, then you need donor board, swap board usually won't work  https://www.donordrives.com/pcb-replacement-guide (this is ref. only and not up to date)

 

Any idea what this one is? Trying to looks for a similar piece on website like mouser electronic.

download_20181218_122951.jpg

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