Help! Any Hard Drive Experts Around?

Cryptic Vigilante

0 likes 16 Jan 2017

Hello to all,

I own a 1Tb hard drive which is mounted into an external deck, exactly like this:

It worked flawlessly for nearly two years, however it hasn't been working at all since I've returned from my Christmas holidays. My internet router was placed directly on top of it and I realized much too late that it was generating a great amount of heat; my hard drive most likely failed because it overheated.

Here's the complete diagnosis:

- The external deck still receives power
- I can actually hear the hard drive spinning normally (ie. no clicking or abnormal sound)
- I've tried plugging the external deck in different USB ports and nothing changed

In other words everything seems to be working normally, but the hard drive isn't detected by my computer when I power-up the external deck; I don't receive any error message either, nothing happens at all.

I've tried looking for solutions over the internet or through my acquaintances, but it hasn't been much productive. The best advice that I've read about is to put my hard drive in the freezer overnight as a desperate measure; apparently this could allow my hard drive to function long enough to save my data.

I thought about joining a hardware forum so that knowledgeable people could look into my issue, but I figured I might as well ask for guidance here first. Can anybody help? Is there a way to repair my hard drive? Could I at least briefly make it work to retrieve my data?

Many thanks!

kylie_kained

Detention Seeker

0 likes 16 Jan 2017

I had an almost exact thing happen with my external the same I tried the freezer fix but to no Avail tried other places for advice but again no joy at all. angry9

I ended up losing a lot of data now I backup everything to a separate source also (plenty of free places that can do this these days). Costly annoying and frustrating I know but never to be repeated.

WellMadeMale

Constant Gardener

0 likes 25 Jan 2017

Unless your router normally operates at temperatures over 140F (the max 'operating temp' for WD 3TB Green drives), I wouldn't worry about the drive...especially if you can hear it spinning up upon power on.

I'd be more concerned at this point about the docking station. It might still power up and provide power to the drive, but something's fried the signalling either in the docking station or the drive itself. Maybe your router is passively 'cooled' yet it operates at 170 degrees or some odd number.

Take both devices to a reputable computer repair shop and have them look at it (unless you have something on that drive you'd rather nobody else ever see). Get their trained estimate and make your decision.

And give that external drive some airflow in the future. Those external drives are notorious for getting much warmer than internally mounted drives, who knows...maybe it was operating at or near it's max temp rating for the last two years already.

https://www.cnet.com/products/wd-green-wd30ezrx-hard-drive-3-tb-sata-600-series/specs/

Many internal drives have the benefit of some to a lot of airflow through a chassis to wash over them - providing some cooling. External drives simply sit in the ambient room temp and radiate their heat with no fans blowing even gently across them.

I've also watched dudes attempt to oven heat their drives occasionally (the concept is to slightly melt the solder on the circuit boards to repair a failed connection). I'd not try that nor the freezer technique either.

The same GQP demanding we move on from January 6th, 2021 is still doing audits of the November 3rd, 2020 election.

Unknown User

0 likes 25 Jan 2017

Quote by WellMadeMale
Unless your router normally operates at temperatures over 140F (the max 'operating temp' for WD 3TB Green drives), I wouldn't worry about the drive...especially if you can hear it spinning up upon power on.

I'd be more concerned at this point about the docking station. It might still power up and provide power to the drive, but something's fried the signalling either in the docking station or the drive itself. Maybe your router is passively 'cooled' yet it operates at 170 degrees or some odd number.

Take both devices to a reputable computer repair shop and have them look at it (unless you have something on that drive you'd rather nobody else ever see). Get their trained estimate and make your decision.

And give that external drive some airflow in the future. Those external drives are notorious for getting much warmer than internally mounted drives, who knows...maybe it was operating at or near it's max temp rating for the last two years already.

https://www.cnet.com/products/wd-green-wd30ezrx-hard-drive-3-tb-sata-600-series/specs/

Many internal drives have the benefit of some to a lot of airflow through a chassis to wash over them - providing some cooling. External drives simply sit in the ambient room temp and radiate their heat with no fans blowing even gently across them.

I've also watched dudes attempt to oven heat their drives occasionally (the concept is to slightly melt the solder on the circuit boards to repair a failed connection). I'd not try that nor the freezer technique either.

I came in to basically post this. As he says, it could be the docking station so don't immediately assume it's the drive. Both should be tested. I've never used an internal drive in a docking station, always purpose-built external drives so can't speak to his point about cooling them but it makes sense to this longtime IT pro.

Taggerdoo

Active Ink Slinger

0 likes 25 Jan 2017

I'd imagine putting one in an oven would be a death sentence...long before any solder became fluid all plastic parts will be destroyed by warping or worse. I'm not a computer guy by any stretch, but if this external drive has any drivers to make it sync with your computer, they may have become corrupted. Erase the drivers and reload, that may be why your computer doesn't recognize it. Or, as suggested, take it to a techie for a checkie....

SereneProdigy

Cryptic Vigilante

0 likes 26 Jan 2017

Quote by WellMadeMale
Unless your router normally operates at temperatures over 140F (the max 'operating temp' for WD 3TB Green drives), I wouldn't worry about the drive...especially if you can hear it spinning up upon power on.

I'd be more concerned at this point about the docking station. It might still power up and provide power to the drive, but something's fried the signalling either in the docking station or the drive itself. Maybe your router is passively 'cooled' yet it operates at 170 degrees or some odd number.

Take both devices to a reputable computer repair shop and have them look at it (unless you have something on that drive you'd rather nobody else ever see). Get their trained estimate and make your decision.

And give that external drive some airflow in the future. Those external drives are notorious for getting much warmer than internally mounted drives, who knows...maybe it was operating at or near it's max temp rating for the last two years already.

https://www.cnet.com/products/wd-green-wd30ezrx-hard-drive-3-tb-sata-600-series/specs/

Many internal drives have the benefit of some to a lot of airflow through a chassis to wash over them - providing some cooling. External drives simply sit in the ambient room temp and radiate their heat with no fans blowing even gently across them.

I've also watched dudes attempt to oven heat their drives occasionally (the concept is to slightly melt the solder on the circuit boards to repair a failed connection). I'd not try that nor the freezer technique either.

Many thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

I think I've been misleading with the picture above however; this isn't actually my hard drive, just a picture found over the internet which features the exact same docking station as my own (ie. Inateck). Your technical data concerning the operating temperatures are probably still rather accurate though, considering how similar recent hard drives are from one another.

Another thing is, I really wasn't using (or powering-up) that hard drive all that frequently, I'd say around 4 hours per week at most; it was mainly used for storage/backup. That likely didn't help the situation, since I know that hard drives generate a certain internal air flow when they're spinning; my own hard drive was just sitting there, constantly accumulating heat from my internet router (which is decidedly pretty damn hot and which operates 24/7).

Anyway, I'll try to get my hands on a new docking station before I attempt any desperate measure (they only cost about $30). And yeah, I'd rather try to fix it by myself first, considering the fairly enormous amount of 'sensitive material' that's stored in there. Nothing illegal however (eg. child pornography or similar crap), but nearly 500GB of porn and also probably a few lewd pictures of myself and/or ex-playmates archived in the dark corners of that drive.

Thanks again for the help.