hard drive controller card exploded... literally...

[W2hCYK]

was playing the fear demo (great game it seems like) and my controller card went BANG, like a cap gun. i had the side of my case off, and something flew out of my computer and hit my acoustic guitar directly next to it...

i looked in the side of my comp, the controller card was flaming a little, and billowing black smoke... i freaked out... everything was on that drive, but i had my pictures backed up on dvds, as well as my music, but all my movies werent... ugh...

so. I ordered another 160gb sata drive, in hopes of swapping the controller card from a new one, into the old one, and getting the old drive working again... i hope it works...

ugh... does anyone think the old card would have damaged any info? do you think the card swap will work? ahhh im gonna go insane tonight...

 

[Jasmeleg]

What kind of HD was it? How long have you had it? I wonder what that chip controlled inside the hard drive? What type of PSU do you have? Was there anything in your case that could have caused the hd to short out? I have never seen anything like this. I mean the most likely reason is because something got shorted out of something got overvolted. Did the computer shut off?

 

[W2hCYK]

It was a maxtor. Ive had it since august. I have a thermaltake 480w psu, very good rails, very stable. My case is all sleeved and im sure nothing shorted. The computer stayed on, i had to run into the back and flip the switch. Windows locked and everything crapped out on me.

Ive had good experiences with maxtor. never had this happen before.

I tried my ATA controller card on the drive, also a maxtor drive, and the controller card played a strange tune, many different 'notes'. didnt work. The drives had the same connectors, i figured it'd be worth a shot... both were 7200rpm drives.

Ill have the new drive on thursday/friday. Should be interesting to see how this ends up.. :-\

 

[spectre440]

what a horrificly unpleasent experience... i'm sorry for you, man...

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

What kind of HD was it? How long have you had it? I wonder what that chip controlled inside the hard drive? What type of PSU do you have? Was there anything in your case that could have caused the hd to short out? I have never seen anything like this. I mean the most likely reason is because something got shorted out of something got overvolted. Did the computer shut off?

ive seen it before... happens a lot. if its not a platter problem, something like that happens to kill a hdd usually. Nice job

 

[W2hCYK]

dippyskoodlez, so wait? its fried?

"something like that happens to kill a hdd usually. Nice job"

huh?

 

[djbbenn]

its fried?

That brings the true meaning to the word "fried" I think.

-Dan

 

[W2hCYK]

**the hard drive itself, not the controller card...

could anything have happened to the read/write heads?

 

[spectre440]

could anything have happened to the read/write heads?

it could, yes, but i don't the drive itself is actually lost, i think (at least i hope for your sake, man) that if you replace the controller with a new identical non-fired one that everything *should* be okay...

in any case, even if that won't work, i dont think the information on the drive is lost and you *could* probably have it recovered by a professional recovery service, but that usually costs heaploads of money...

edit:
in any case #2, please keep posting and updating us on the situation, this is actually quite interesting...
i do feel sorry for you man, i've never had a drive burn out or crash on me... i can only imagine what a horrible experience that might be...

 

[W2hCYK]

ah well...

i got a new drive, but it had an updated PCB and 2 pins on the bottom dont match up with my old drive. Im gonna keep it around, maybe i can find one on ebay or something later on.

or if anyone here has a broken one. Maxtor Diamond Max 9 7200rpm 8mb cache, 160gb

ill pay $40 for a broken one if the PCB matches my hard drive's

 

[W2hCYK]

ah well...

i got a new drive, but it had an updated PCB and 2 pins on the bottom dont match up with my old drive. Im gonna keep it around, maybe i can find one on ebay or something later on.

or if anyone here has a broken one. Maxtor Diamond Max 9 7200rpm 8mb cache, 160gb

ill pay $40 for a broken one if the PCB matches my hard drive's

 

[Aevum]

ladies and gentlemen, this is a reminder for those of you who belive that when overclocking, you´re only risking your cpu and motherboard in worst case scenario,

thats weird, i thought that on the i875 the pci bus was locked,
and next time, get a WD or seagate, maxtor hard drives sometimes have heat probems,
and the 9 series wasnt very good

 

[tsajimbo]

Maxtor 250 gb hard drive chip burned out

I was putting together a new computer and had 2 250 gb SATA Maxtor hard drives installed in an Asus a8n32 sli mb as secondary drives in a raid array along with a 74 gb 10,000 rpm wd raptor hd. When I powered up for the first time one of the hds flashed with a visible flame and smoke. I quickly pulled the plug on the machine and looked for a problem. Not seeing anything obvious I plugged the computer back in an powered up again. The second hard drive blew out and subsequent attempts to start the computer failed after removing the hds. Both drives had the same chip burned out and on returning to the place where I purchased the drives and MB we determined the MB was also fried. My question is : is this a mb or hd problem ?

j

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

ladies and gentlemen, this is a reminder for those of you who belive that when overclocking, you´re only risking your cpu and motherboard in worst case scenario,

thats weird, i thought that on the i875 the pci bus was locked,
and next time, get a WD or seagate, maxtor hard drives sometimes have heat probems,
and the 9 series wasnt very good

RUnning your pci bus out of spec shouldnt cause it to blow up... just corrupt if anything....

This is a common problem with hdd controllers.. even in 100% stock pc's it happens.. ive done it... twice now..

 

[Amdguy]

That poor hard drive got owned, im my computer world i never use maxtor i just hear a lot of bad things about them. I had one go bad with no warnings once.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

That poor hard drive got owned, im my computer world i never use maxtor i just hear a lot of bad things about them. I had one go bad with no warnings once.

My death count is up to 2 maxtors (1 is a fireball, technicly now a maxtor, but its old..) my wd800jb, and eben an IBM..

so.. yeah.. no hdd is really safe... Maxtors seem to sell a lot more at store like wally world and BB, so that could be why they have a high death rate.. havent seen any seagates dead yet, and I just got an 80gb so we'll see how it goes..

 

[Amdguy]

I can tell you for a fact that i see more maxtors dead at work than anything else, that experience that i had was a personal one, all hard drives die but i have seen to many bad things go wrong with maxtors so i really try hard to stay away from them.

 

[tsajimbo]

AMd guy

What motherboard were you using when your hd fried?

 

[W2hCYK]

my problem was HD related, but since then i've changed out my motherboard..

 

[tsajimbo]

I just looked more closely at the picture w2hcyk posted and the same chip on my two Maxtor hds burned out.

 

[W2hCYK]

I'm gonna get WD hard drives for my next system, i heard the problem was from overvolting on the 5v rail

what PSU do you have? i have a thermaltake 480w

 

[W2hCYK]

big hit on info

http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-smooth-l7250.htm

seems to burn in the same direction, and I was right also, from a overvolting...

 

[65tweet]

I played with the idea of raising my 5 & 3.3 volt rails.... just how high did you go?

 

[W2hCYK]

i didnt adjust them... lol... stupid thermaltake psu...