Hard drive sparking - is data recovery possible?

May 31, 2006 6:01 AM

My hard drive recently started sparking, then smoking and burning. I quickly turned off the computer, but now I need to recover my data. I can see the spot on the hard drive that is black, so I know where the problem is. Is it safe for me to spend thirty minutes or so backing data off of this damaged drive? Alternatively, is it possible to repair the drive, at least enough to backup my data? Or have I lost everything?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

posted by gd779 to computers & internet (35 comments total)

Dude, if it sparked, smoked, and burned, you are screwed. If its really really important, you can spend thousands to get it recovered by a lab, but other then that, don't risk it. FIRE BAD! Where, exactly, is this burned part that you are seeing?
posted by Mach5 at 6:18 AM on May 31, 2006

The burned part is not on the plate (I believe that is what the round disc is called, correct?) but on the chips and circuits. Does that answer your question?
posted by gd779 at 6:24 AM on May 31, 2006

Is it safe for me to spend thirty minutes or so backing data off of this damaged drive?

You make it sound like the drive is still working. Personally, I'd hook it up to a computer I didn't care about, or via an external USB enclosure, and back up the data that way. (Presuming the drive works.) If it is not working, like Mach5 said, you will need to invest significant funds to recover data from a professional outfit.
posted by knave at 6:25 AM on May 31, 2006

The burned part is not on the plate (I believe that is what the round disc is called, correct?) but on the chips and circuits.

Oh, that makes it interesting. If you can find another board from the same model hard drive, you could probably replace it yourself and see if the drive works...
posted by knave at 6:26 AM on May 31, 2006

If you get an identical drive (must be exactly identical) you can try swapping the circuit boards. Usually the controller board just pops off when its unscrewed, with spring loaded contacts.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:27 AM on May 31, 2006

You make it sound like the drive is still working.

The drive does work.

(The sparking has actually happened twice. The first time, I didn't see it, I only smelled the smoke. Since I was troubleshooting what I believed to be an overheating video card at the time, I assumed it was the video card. So I put the drive in a different system, and tried it again, only this time I saw the spark and therefore knew it was the hard drive. But, so far as I have seen, the drive does appear to function, other than the occassional bit of spark and smoke.)
posted by gd779 at 6:36 AM on May 31, 2006

Whereabouts on the board was the sparking and burning? Was it in the area of a connector, or did it involve an IC, resistor, or capacitor?

If it's a connector, which sounds more likely - probably the power rail - it could be ok, or you could fry the otherwise still functional board. Proceed with caution.

Is it possible for you to take a photo and post it up, indicating where the burning occurred?
posted by veedubya at 6:47 AM on May 31, 2006

Your data is at risk. If it extremely valuable, then pay to have the data recovered. If it's pretty valuable, the identical drive proposed by sticky carpet is a good idea. If you are a risk taker, use a USB external drive case to pull the data off. That way, the potential damage to your pc from a flaming, sparking, electrically unstable hard drive is somewhat limited. Get video of the event, and it there are fireworks, put on youtube, and post as a followup! Seriously, this is not very safe, so use caution, have a fire extinguisher available, and a phone to call 911 if needed.
posted by theora55 at 6:54 AM on May 31, 2006

StickyCarpet has it, I've done this several times.
posted by Mitheral at 6:58 AM on May 31, 2006

If you do send it out for recovery, I can give a personal shout out to gillware.com - they're in the $400 range as opposed to the $1k range and have saved half a dozen drives for me. Although, admittedly, my drives never actually combusted.
posted by bhance at 7:06 AM on May 31, 2006

Yeah, if it's the controller card, then I'd use a USB enclosure (except not assembled, so you can watch the drive), connect it to a cheap powered hub to try and get a little bit of a buffer between your motherboard and the enclosure, and then get your data off of it as quickly as possible. Then toss the drive. Drives are cheap nowadays.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2006

Is it possible for you to take a photo and post it up, indicating where the burning occurred?

Sure, I should be able to do that this afternoon.
posted by gd779 at 7:11 AM on May 31, 2006

Was it one of these?
posted by mad_little_monkey at 8:01 AM on May 31, 2006

If the media, the little round plates are disabled at all it's called a head crash and you're unlikely to see much data fromt he device. Befor fiddling around with this, decide how valuable the data is. If the data is worth it, you'll need to pack the drive off to a comnpany like Drive Savers or any other, do a google search for data recovert.

Based on your description the drives logic board is toasted, it's conceivable (but not recommended) that you could buy the exact same drive and replace the logic board but really, think about how important that data is and then pack it off to a professional or just let it go. Fiddling with the drives makes it less likely that someone will be able to recover data from it.
posted by iamabot at 9:43 AM on May 31, 2006

Replacing the logic board with one from the "same drive" will usually only work if the logic board is running the same firmware. So, if you go this route, be very sure that the firmware versions are identical.
posted by shinybeast at 11:21 AM on May 31, 2006

Have you checked the area with the spark and burn for anything that could be creating a short, for example bend leads touching another lead or penetrating into a circuitboard trace, or something stuck in/on the board that is in contact with the leads of some components, creating a short, or a jumper that has come loose, etc.

Sparks and smoke are unusual without something external at work, such as physical damage done to a component, or foreign matter making a connection where there shouldn't be one.

If you find something that would create a short, and remove it, there is a good chance the disk is fine. If you can't find anything odd, then you'll probably have to replace the circuit board with one from a matching model.
posted by -harlequin- at 12:09 PM on May 31, 2006

Okay, I've taken some pictures of the fried hard drive:

here.

here.

here.

here.

If anybody needs a closer look at something, just let me know. Thanks for all your help!
posted by gd779 at 1:30 PM on May 31, 2006

I have a hard time believing you could pull any data off that. That IC looks destroyed.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:47 PM on May 31, 2006

The IC, yes. The pysical representation of data might well be untouched on the platters. Either swap the board or send it off.
posted by IronLizard at 2:13 PM on May 31, 2006

Funny, but that looks eerily similar to what happened to a darlington driver I accidentally switched the polarity on. (There's a pic on my blog).
posted by IronLizard at 2:16 PM on May 31, 2006

At the company I used to work for, we would occasionally have catastrophic failure of a 1000W non-isolated switching power supply (all of which means, very little was limiting the incoming AC line current).. Blue arcs would burn up a large portion of the 4"x4" PCB. Eventually, I think they put some fusing (flame proof) resistors here and there to limit the fireworks..

It was cool! because I wasn't the one working on that project :P
posted by Chuckles at 2:59 PM on May 31, 2006

You probably haven't lost everything, yet.

I might be a bit reckless, but I like to try to do things for myself, so I'd try cleaning up the pins around the scorched area, make sure nothing is shorted (take your time and be really careful, thorough, and gentle). Then try the USB HDD enclosure idea.

If that works, get everything off as quickly as possible, verify your data is ok, then bin the HDD.

If it starts sparking, unplug it and either try the controller swap idea (as has already been said, you've really got to make sure you get the same exact one) or send it to a data recovery place (where they'll do the same controller card swap thing, most likely).

In future make more frequent backups.
posted by The Monkey at 9:12 PM on May 31, 2006

I'd try cleaning up the pins around the scorched area, make sure nothing is shorted (take your time and be really careful, thorough, and gentle).

How should I clean the pins? I assume water is out, as is any tissue that might tear and burn. Any tips?
posted by gd779 at 5:23 AM on June 1, 2006

You can buy contact cleaner at radio shack and home depot. I really doubt that's going to help you though that IC looks like it was destroyed.
posted by Mitheral at 8:35 AM on June 1, 2006

I really don't think it will work in the state it's in. Something inside the chip has vaporized, that's why it broke apart. However, I definitely agree with the principal that you never really know until you try it, so go ahead and try.

Cleaning:

Water will only do damage if it sits for a long time somewhere, or if you power the electronics up while wet. So, you probably don't want to use any water, but if you where to remove the PCB from the drive first, and you put extra effort into drying the PCB off as soon as your done cleaning, it would be perfectly acceptable.

A little scrubbing action with a toothbrush (or anything with bristles of similar stiffness) is good too.
posted by Chuckles at 11:40 AM on June 1, 2006

were, you're, ARGH! (I wonder how often those go buy that I don't even notice.. And, appologies for the vanity corrections)
posted by Chuckles at 11:42 AM on June 1, 2006

You'll really need to look at the pcb underneath, so there's no getting around pulling it. When these 'pop', they can go with the force of a small firecracker and punch through PCB's. There are tracks on the underside that can be damaged.
posted by IronLizard at 1:56 PM on June 1, 2006

I did try to clean it last night. (This was before I saw IronLizard's suggestion this morning - I will check the underside of the board tonight). The computer turned on twice, but didn't recognize the presence of the hard drive. I changed the jumper settings hoping that was the problem (I had forgotten to reset this drive to master) and plugged it back in, but then the computer wouldn't even turn on. Interestingly, this does not appear to be related directly to the bad hard drive, the computer won't turn on even when my secondary (and unscorched) hard drive is the only one plugged in.

I'll look at the underside of the circuit board tonight, as IronLizard suggested, and then I've got to either put this drive in another system (which seems risky to me - is it?) or else figure out why my current system won't turn on. Alternatively, I may decide to ship this drive off for an expensive attempt at data recovery. Either way, I'll continue to post updates here over the weekend, as I learn more.

Thanks for all your suggestions!
posted by gd779 at 5:23 AM on June 2, 2006

"the computer won't turn on even when my secondary (and unscorched) hard drive is the only one plugged in."

That's odd behavior. I can come up with a far-fetched theory as to what's happening, but it would be too speculative. I do, and did originally, worry that your original problem may not have been that drive, but something else. I'd use a different IDE cable, first of all. But something may be broken on your motherboard's IDE controller. It could be the cause of everything or, more likely, a result of the broken drive. This was why you shouldn't reconnect the broken drive directly to your motherboard under any circumstances.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:45 AM on June 2, 2006

This was why you shouldn't reconnect the broken drive directly to your motherboard under any circumstances.

Fortunately, I've received a complete system replacement (read: new computer) from Dell pursuant to my warranty. So if my motherboard has been damaged by the hard drive, it's no loss. Thanks for the warning, though - it saved me from trying to do this on my new system, which was my first instinct.

If I am able to try and replace the circuit board, any suggestion as to how I would go about confirming that a replacement drive is identical (including firmware, as described by shinybeast above) to my existing drive?
posted by gd779 at 7:35 AM on June 2, 2006

The firmware's a problem, but otherwise you can determine if they're the same by looking at the full model number printed on the top of the drive. Usually there will be a main model number and a minor revision "number" attached to it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:09 PM on June 2, 2006

Time to check out the power supply. This problem leads me to believe that: either the drive blew it or it blew the drive. Does the PSU fan still come on? A failure in the voltage regulation could have sent a big surge to the drive, causing the fried chip. Pop in a cheap supply and try the system w/o the drive, then with it.
posted by IronLizard at 10:27 PM on June 2, 2006

Also: Try using an DVOM to check the power pins on the HD for a short.
posted by IronLizard at 10:29 PM on June 2, 2006

Okay, after much work, I've decided to bite the bullett and ship the drive off to a professional data recovery outfit, and hope they have more luck at finding a duplicate board than I have had. Thanks for all your suggestions and help!
posted by gd779 at 5:50 AM on June 6, 2006

I hope it works out gd779. I'm under the impression that some of those places already have large collections of controller cards. Good luck.
posted by The Monkey at 4:45 PM on June 6, 2006