is my hard drive fried?

[laFiera]

So I get home today and I see my external drive (Western Digital Elements 640GB USB 2.0) is not working. I noticed the power light is not on, so I make sure the electric outlet is working, and then I noticed that power supply to the external drive looks like the power supply to my toshiba laptop. I take a closer look, and turns out my 9 year old hooked up the wrong power supply to the external drive!

I see that the toshiba power supply says output: 19 v
The external drive power supply says output: 12v

I failed physics when it came to electric currents, so my primitive understanding makes me assume that the external drive has been fried by the 'extra current' from the toshiba power supply. Is that the case? And if so---is there any hope in recovering the data from the drive?

Is the drive fried or is it the enclosure that has been fried. If you got any input on the matter, please let me know!
thanks!

 

[RebateMonger]

I'd GUESS that the hard drive is OK, but the WD housing is fried. The WD could be removed and attached to a computer as a secondary drive (either internally or with a USB-to-SATA adapter cable or with another external housing) and the files will likely be available.

 

[Laputa]

Best bet is to open up the casing and check the circuit board on the hard drive to see if there are any blown chips first. The USB external circuit is definitely gone south, but the drive might be good. You will need a T9 bit to remove the 4-5 screws that holds down the circuit board. You can get this tool at HomeDepot or Lowe's for around $5-6. If the circuit board look okay, it's worth a shot to connect it to your system if you have one available. Since it's a 640GB, it's likely a SATA interface in that WD box. Or could possibly be two 320s, but I doubt that since it costs more to stuff two in that box. Some Lacies are like that with two WD drives. Good luck

 

[laFiera]

Thanks for the advice.....
I opened the case, and the drive slides out on one side; the circuitry is on the other side, but what i did was first hook up the drive via a sata-usb cable, and i heard the drive spinning, and my laptop detected it, and yep, all the files were there. Upon inspection the circuitry looks ok, but not sure how to test it, so i think ill just get one of those external enclosures and put the drive there.