Member Avatar for nickejoe

Just installed a maxtor 200gig hard drive. Got it up and running for a day and transfered lots & lots & lots files to it. It is a third drive, so I installed it with a sabrent pci controler card. Also have 2 cd-dvd player\burners. computer is a Dell 8200 p4 w/250w power supply. Have an gforce 4600 nvidia video card w/on board fan. Because the card produced so much heat I installed a cpu fan and another fan on the case to bring in air. When I installed the new maxtor there was not enough power plugs to run all. I unpluged the case fan so I could give power to the new drive. All went well until I installed a y connector and hooked up the fan. About 60 seconds and the comp shut down and a burning smell filled air. An inspection of the hard drive showed a black/burned/smelly spot on the drive circuit board.
Question 1: (most important) I have seen info about data recovery by changing the circuit board and have ordered a identical drive form same supplier. Any helpfull comments regarding the data recovery & circuit board repair?
Question 2: Was hooking up the case fan the cause of the hard drive failure or was it just a coincidence? (need the case fan but don't want to fry a new drive) Any thoughts?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Thong_Ispector

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Given the burned PCB you describe and the Y-adapter event noted by , the immediate priority is preservation: do not power the drive again and photograph the board and any connector damage. Do not open the drive can (platters/heads) — that destroys recovery chances without a clean room.

  • Visually inspect and photograph the PCB, the Molex/power connector and the Y-splitter. Melted plastic or blackened pins at the power input usually points at an overcurrent, bad contact or arcing at the connector rather than a random internal fault.
  • With the suspect drive disconnected, use a DMM to check a spare Molex under system load (yellow→black = 12V, red→black = 5V). Large voltage sag on the 12V rail during spin-up is a common culprit because 3.5" motors demand peak current on 12V.
  • Look for wiring or screw/metal contact that could short the PCB to chassis. Poorly seated splitters and cheap adapters are frequent failure points.
  • If the PCB is charred in the power stage or has blown surface components, simple component replacement may not restore the drive. Many Maxtor/Seagate-era boards also keep drive-specific adaptive data in a small EEPROM; a donor board must match PCB/firmware revision, and you may need to transplant that EEPROM chip to make the donor work.

As others like and suggested, power capability and wiring quality matter — confirm the PSU’s actual +12V/+5V capacity before re-populating drives. If the data is important, avoid prolonged DIY attempts: PCB swaps, repeated power cycles, or opening the can can permanently lower recovery odds. A donor-board swap is a valid DIY route only when the donor matches exactly and you are comfortable with delicate solder/smd work; otherwise, professional recovery is the safe option.

For a replacement workflow later, consolidate the system onto a single, reliable drive and use a modern disk-imaging tool (free options exist) to clone the OS before retiring old hardware.

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Member Avatar for SuperNerd

First of all, I am sorry to hear about the drive. Second, a fan would not cause your hard drive to burn unless the fan is close to the drive and the fan blew and then ignited the drive. Third, I would upgrade to a 350w power supply and make make sure the motherboard can handle a 200gig hard drive.

Member Avatar for nickejoe

Could the incorporation of the fan have caused a power surge or overload or something?
How can I tell if MB will support 200gig HD?
Will a 350w PS Fit in my dell 8200 PS space?

Member Avatar for nizzy1115

Could the incorporation of the fan have caused a power surge or overload or something?
How can I tell if MB will support 200gig HD?
Will a 350w PS Fit in my dell 8200 PS space?

i doubt a new power supply will fit in your case....all oem's are really bad about that...im buying a new case to solve this problem...you could do the same and get a new case and powersupply in one...250 is not nearly enough, but your mb does support 200 gig hd. i say get atleast a decent 430 watt so you have a cushion for anything in the future as 300/350 is getting to be not enough anymore. best of luck! ;)

Member Avatar for nickejoe

Got on the Dell forum and found that Dell PS are ATX standard, but most PS will not fit w/o case mods. Found an 425w PS made for Dell boxes @ http://pcpowercooling.com/. Cost more $ but no mods. Got the HD today and will have the PS on friday. Thought I would wait until I install the PS before taking on the HD. Any Ideas on the PS install?
Also think I will Transfer the OS and programs that are on my "c" drive to a new larger drive so I can eliminate the third HD. Any ideas on the transfer?

Member Avatar for nizzy1115

Got on the Dell forum and found that Dell PS are ATX standard, but most PS will not fit w/o case mods. Found an 425w PS made for Dell boxes @ http://pcpowercooling.com/. Cost more $ but no mods. Got the HD today and will have the PS on friday. Thought I would wait until I install the PS before taking on the HD. Any Ideas on the PS install?
Also think I will Transfer the OS and programs that are on my "c" drive to a new larger drive so I can eliminate the third HD. Any ideas on the transfer?

Try using norton ghost...great program for transfreing entire drives

Member Avatar for Thong_Ispector

I agree with those above that your power supply was not enough to support what all you had on it.

Norton Ghost will do the job but it is not free.

There is a Ghost for Linux g4l- that is free, it is a 10 meg download and it is an ISO image. So you burn it to a CD it will boot and give you a free version of ghost. Not quite as pretty or clean as the Norton Version but it does a good job of cloning and backing up.

Sorry I dont have the link handy.

Also double check that you didnt have that fried drive touching something metal inside the case...

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