I've plugged the wrong charger into my external storage
- Thread starter Trumar41
- Start date
Solution
Solandri
Illustrious
- Jan 4, 2012
- 4,919
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- 39,240
Most laptop chargers are 19V, while most external drive power supplies are probably 12V or 5V. You can confirm by reading the details on the AC adapters - it will list the respective DC voltages. Plugging low-voltage DC power into a device which expects high-voltage DC power usually results in no harm to the device, it just doesn't power up until it gets the right AC adapter. But plugging high-voltage DC power into a device which expects low-voltage DC power usually fries the electronics.
That said, HDDs have a diode in them which acts as a fuse and is designed to blow specifically in the event too much power is applied, to protect the other electronics. The mechanical bits (spindle motor, read/write head actuator) are probably fine - they only die from higher voltage if you operate it that way too long. So your data is most likely still intact.
Find a hard drive data recovery service and explain what happened to them. If the fuse worked, then all they have to do is shunt it to power up your drive. Your recovery fee should be less than $100 in this case. If the fuse didn't work and the board is fried, they'll probably have to do a board swap, which will add probably $100 to your fee. Only if the mechanical parts have been damaged does it get into the gnarly recovery where they have to open up your drive. That usually costs $500-$1000.
If the drive is relatively new and you're good at tinkering with electronics, you could even try the board swap yourself. Just buy an identical external drive, open both enclosures, and transfer the board from the new drive to the old drive. There's also a small CMOS chip which holds remapped sector addresses which needs to be transferred. But if the drive is relatively new, there probably are no remapped sectors yet, and you should be fine without transferring this chip. But because of the possibility of the fuse having saved the drive, and the difficulty in transferring this CMOS chip, I'd recommend just having a hard drive recovery service deal with it.
Edit: Also, for future reference, please note that Google Photos gives you free unlimited storage of photos on their cloud up to 2048x2048 resolution. It will downsize your photos to this resolution after uploading. If you want to retain the original resolution, the photo's storage will be allocated against your free 15 GB Google Drive limit. They'll also backup all your videos up to 1080p and 5 minutes for free (I haven't check those requirements in a few years so they might have adjusted them).
https://www.google.com/photos/about/
If you have Amazon Prime, you also get free unlimited storage of photos, any resolution.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos
If you aren't keeping two local copies of all your photos, it would be wise to use one of these as a cloud backup since they are basically free.
That said, HDDs have a diode in them which acts as a fuse and is designed to blow specifically in the event too much power is applied, to protect the other electronics. The mechanical bits (spindle motor, read/write head actuator) are probably fine - they only die from higher voltage if you operate it that way too long. So your data is most likely still intact.
Find a hard drive data recovery service and explain what happened to them. If the fuse worked, then all they have to do is shunt it to power up your drive. Your recovery fee should be less than $100 in this case. If the fuse didn't work and the board is fried, they'll probably have to do a board swap, which will add probably $100 to your fee. Only if the mechanical parts have been damaged does it get into the gnarly recovery where they have to open up your drive. That usually costs $500-$1000.
If the drive is relatively new and you're good at tinkering with electronics, you could even try the board swap yourself. Just buy an identical external drive, open both enclosures, and transfer the board from the new drive to the old drive. There's also a small CMOS chip which holds remapped sector addresses which needs to be transferred. But if the drive is relatively new, there probably are no remapped sectors yet, and you should be fine without transferring this chip. But because of the possibility of the fuse having saved the drive, and the difficulty in transferring this CMOS chip, I'd recommend just having a hard drive recovery service deal with it.
Edit: Also, for future reference, please note that Google Photos gives you free unlimited storage of photos on their cloud up to 2048x2048 resolution. It will downsize your photos to this resolution after uploading. If you want to retain the original resolution, the photo's storage will be allocated against your free 15 GB Google Drive limit. They'll also backup all your videos up to 1080p and 5 minutes for free (I haven't check those requirements in a few years so they might have adjusted them).
https://www.google.com/photos/about/
If you have Amazon Prime, you also get free unlimited storage of photos, any resolution.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos
If you aren't keeping two local copies of all your photos, it would be wise to use one of these as a cloud backup since they are basically free.
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