Accidentally crossed up the power supplies between a Dymo 400 printer and a Western Digital 2TB USB 3.0 My Book drive. Drive just has a slow blinking white light. The Dymo printer suffered not a bit from under-volting.

So I took it apart to find a WD20EARX-00PASB0 with this PCB number 2060-771698-004 REV A.

No spin, no sound, nothing from the drive. But the little USB adapter board is perfectly fine, I checked it on another hard drive. Great going WD, protect the interface adapter from 2x the voltage but design the adapter to pass it through to zorch the drive. (Also a big fat raspberry to Dymo for not using a power connector different from the most common one for 12 volts.)

Think a PCB swap (with firmware chip change) can save it?

yes, a pcb swap should work.
if preamp is fried due to over voltage than it wont help.

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RAID/Server Recovery

Check the 12V TVS diode (D4) and the associated zero-ohm resistor (R64). If the resistor is OK, then removing the shorted diode will probably be all you need to do.

See http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

... and http://www.hddoracle.com/download/file. ... &mode=view

Watch out for this ...

Catastrophic failures in Western Digital PCBs:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 119&p=5033

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Just took the board off and scanned it. Looks like all the magic smoke is still inside. Nothing black that shouldn't be and no holes blown out of any of the chips. I don't have the fine soldering tools to be removing SMT parts, or an ohmmeter I'd trust to not fry other things if it's just a shorted diode.

I looked up that repair place in Canada that does a trade on the boards, firmware chip swap and return shipping for $50.00 Any places in the USA do that?

"This is because the bridge is usually capable of tolerating the overvoltage, however it passes the incoming 19V supply directly to the drive's 12V input."

My translation of that is "This is an <expletive> STUPID DESIGN!" USB bridge boards are cheap, drives are not. If anything in an external is going to go poof due to an improper power supply, the bridge board should either be designed to handle it without harm or sacrifice itself to protect the drive - but what we have here is the bridge is designed to handle it without harm, without providing protection to the drive. The bodyguard just jumped the wrong way and the sniper got the principle. "Agent Bridge, you're demoted to scooping dog poo." (Remember the one season TV comedy "DAG"?)

Has me wondering if there's a way to add 12v over-volt protection to a My Book bridge.

A multimeter costs US$5.

The diode can be removed with flush cutters. No need to desolder it.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm assuming the D4 diode is the one on the far left, since the other one is marked D3.

Yes.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Just be careful of the U12 chip while removing diodes. If you break that chip, it might be game over as that contains the adaptive ROM code needed to program a new PCB.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

I'd rather send it off to be fixed and pay the 'stupidity tax' for plugging in the wrong power supply than risk trashing it. Anyone in the USA that will fix it for $50? If not, the board gets to visit Canada.

http://www.donordrives.com/services - $60 and it includes the replacement PCB. Just be aware that if it gets lost in shipping, you're in a world of hurt.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Do you not have electronics repair techs where you live? One could test and remove the shorted diode in 10 minutes for peanuts. However, I would ask to wait while it's done and mark the PCB beforehand to identify that it is yours. It's not unheard of for PCBs to get mixed up, accidentally thrown out, or misplaced by some PC repair shops.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Nope. No such luck with techs around here. I'm in Weiser, ID. I know a guy who would have been able to do it, a retired US Navy radioman. When he was in the service he often had to build the equipment before he could use it.

He's in his 80's, blind in one eye and the other one has been getting worse so he's cutting way back on the little fiddly repair work he used to do.

I got the diode unsoldered and when plugged into a generic SATA-USB adapter... nothing. Windows wanted to initialize it.

Then I plugged in the adapter from the My Book housing and... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU

Good news!!!

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I should get another 2TB (1.8TB formatted) and copy everything over, using a generic USB to SATA adapter or direct SATA connection, then format this drive using a direct connection.

Western Digital appears to have done something a bit hinky with the format to make it not recognizable when not connected via the My Book bridge, yet a SATA drive formatted with a direct SATA connection will work with the My Book bridge.

The My Book bridge encrypts the data!

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*googles* Well, damn. It encrypts even when Smartware was only installed to shut off the annoying faux CD-ROM, no password was set on the drive, no encryption or protection was ever chosen/selected/activated, then Smartware was uninstalled.

All the more reason to get another, NOT Western Digital (or not a WD external), drive to copy everything to. Has me wondering if the My Book bridge would encrypt data written through it onto a drive formatted normally on a direct SATA connection then connected to the bridge.

Hi all
I have the same problem. Just to make it clear - did I find the D4 diode correctly? Thanks.

No, that's a 0 ohm resistor (I.e like a fuse) the TVS is the larger black component below it.

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The easiest way to test it is to get a multimeter with a "continuity test" mode, one that "beeps" when the probes are connected electrically. Should be cheap enough in a local hobby shop.

The 0 ohm resistors should "beep" when the probes are connected either side of the contacts and the TVS diodes should NOT "beep".

Hope it helps?

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