Restore B/U external drive that burned power lead

Late 2015 iMac running OS 10.14.

I had a WD 2TB 3.5" SATA external drive that I used for Time Machine B/U and also to backup my 600GB iTunes collection.

I noticed Time Machine was not backing up, turns out the power connection into the back of the WD drive housing had burned, melted both male and female.

I wasn't sure if the drive itself had failed so I removed it from the housing and purchased a new Sabrent Docking Station from Amazon...


I put the WD drive into the docking station and connected it to my iMac. It runs but I get a message stating the drive cannot be recognized. I opened Disk Utility and it just states it's a 2TB Sabrent, nothing else. It asks if I want to initialize the disk which I don't want to do since I'll lose all my data.


I figured all the identifiers were on the drive itself, not the housing, I thought I'd plug it back in, it would be recognized as the same drive and I'd be good to go.


What have I failed to recognize? Is there any way to access my data and continue to use the same drive?



thanks,


Rob

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Oct 14, 2023 7:37 PM

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8 replies

Oct 19, 2023 2:56 PM in response to RecoilRob55

There is a good chance the burned power supply connection has damaged the drive. Just because it powers up and is recognized, does not mean that other drive functionality is Ok. The only way to know for sure is to try using a different adapter/dock/enclosure to access the drive. Over the years I have used & preferred Plugable products and ones from Startech. OWC makes some good products, but I am not a fan of some of their docks & enclosures because they don't support several features which I require (SMART health monitoring access and UASP protocol)....I do like the OWC Mercury Aluminum enclosures in spite of them not supporting those features.


You could try using a data recovery utility to attempt to read the drive....some may require a mounted drive while others can work without the drive being mounted.


FYI, I have rarely had success trying to access hardware & data for recovery or troubleshooting purposes using macOS. Many times macOS itself will get in the way. I have always resorted to using a Linux system since I'm able to quickly & easily view the communication between a device & computer to get critical information, plus many times the Linux utilities are able to provide more details if there is a problem.....these all involve using command line utilities so being familiar with the basics is required.


You could try reading the raw data from the drive to see what can be seen, however, much of the data will be meaningless, but you should be able to spot some identifiable items which are plain text such as file/folder names, and contents of plain text files. To do this requires the use of the macOS command line and also properly retrieving the proper drive identifier for the WD drive. You can use Disk Utility to get the drive identifier, but you may need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility (seems like it will appear as "Sabrent" for you which is fine). The drive identifier is in the form of "diskX" where "X" is a number...for example, you may see "disk3". With the correct drive identifier, you can use the following command within the Terminal app to view the raw data on the drive (just replace the "diskX" part with the correct drive identifier for the WD/Sabrent drive):

sudo  xxd  /dev/diskX


You will be prompted for your admin password. Nothing will appear on the screen as you type the password, so press the "Return" key to submit the password.


This command will have text scrolling by very quickly. You can pause it by pressing Control + S, then resuming by pressing any key. To terminate the command press Control + C.


A variation of this command will allow you to slowly page through the stream by using the Page Up & Page Down keys. Terminating this version just requires pressing the "Q" key.

sudo  xxd  /dev/diskX  |  less


I recommend stretching the Terminal window to fit the height of the display.


For anyone running newer versions of macOS which have tightened system security, you may first need to give the Terminal app "Full Disk Access" within the "Security & Privacy" System Preferences/Settings. I forget which version of macOS first introduced the concept of "Full Disk Access".

Oct 14, 2023 9:49 PM in response to RecoilRob55

You're literally playing with fire.


Get rid of the drive and replace it. At today's cost for hard drives, why put your whole house/apartment at risk of being destroyed.


Short circuits happen and fires are real. I think it's foolish to minimize the danger and make this a computer drive problem. You have a fire hazard problem.



Oct 21, 2023 9:16 AM in response to HWTech

I am not well enough versed in Terminal and raw data to work that way so ended up taking the easy way out. I backed up my iTunes Library (350gb) to another drive I had in a OWC Mercury enclosure.


I reinitialized the questionable drive now in the Sabrent enclosure and am still able to use it.


Also, some googling brought up more instances of the original WD power supply meltdowns at the plugin connection. I have an email in to WD to see if there's actually anything wrong with the drive itself.


Thanks for the help.

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Restore B/U external drive that burned power lead

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