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Question

Hard Drive Help

Feb 3, 2014 10:43PM PST

Several months ago my Compaq computer was fried during a massive power surge despite being powered down and having a surge protector. The power supply was fried and the motherboard damaged. The dvd-writer is okay and the 250 GB hard drive I am not sure about as I didn't have a SATA drive compatible computer to test it on.
Recently I got an almost identical computer that has Win 7 for almost nothing. I wanted to test the 250 GB hard drive on the new model to see if it was damaged. Does anybody think that if the drive was damaged in the surge it could damage the new computer? I know it's possible but I wasn't sure how likely it was.
If the 250 GB drive is okay I was thinking about wiping the drive clean of the Win Xp operating system that is on it and using it in the new computer in addition to it's 80 GB drive.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
You could
Feb 3, 2014 10:55PM PST

One way to go would be to hook it up and see what happens, if you are having trepidations about doing that you could take it to a shop and have them do the testing for you, which they could do using an enclosure, it would cost you a few bucks probably not much. My gut feeling is that it will either work or it will not, as to doing damage to the system I'd say unlikely.

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Answer
Your PC, your risk
Feb 4, 2014 12:41AM PST

You want to save a 250gb that's not IMHO worth saving. Sure you can play with it and get it going again, but you don't know if it working. What you want to do is about the typical way to test it, but you're placing your new PC at risk. So, again do you want to do this for a measly 250gb drive that suggests its old anyway?

You take you risks and do what you want to do, but overall it maybe better to get another much larger SATA drive and these are relatively cheap new. Heck, a 1tb drive is under $100 and that will give you heaps of storage. Afterall, when it comes to power surge damage it really becomes a risky operation to try to "re-use anything". Even if it works it could fail naturally too soon. I have found such re-use of devices something I get called back on days or weeks later. You decide...

tada -----Willy Happy

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Answer
The only good news is SATA
Feb 4, 2014 12:46AM PST

I've yet to find a fried SATA HDD fry a motherboard. I'm sure someday it will happen but so far so good. One of my gigs includes work on commercial DVR systems with a few tons of failed drives. As you can imagine these are really hard to dispose of since folk and engineers may think they can be saved. At least the thousand or many more have not fried a SATA interface yet.
Bob

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Sata drive damage creation
Feb 4, 2014 9:21AM PST

Same here, never seen one create damage...

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Answer
Hard Drive Help
Feb 4, 2014 6:55AM PST

Hi,
I think your are not sure your HDD ok conduction or not. Some process used check your HDD ok conduction or not. You connect cable in hdd, that time your hdd start or not or hdd start it means ok. Or not start or sound create like kit-kit it means your hdd damage.
But your are asking your mother board also damage so i suggest you change system.

Thanks.

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sata
Feb 4, 2014 7:58AM PST

DVR systems with a few tons of failed drives. As you can imagine these are really hard to dispose of since folk and engineers may think they can be saved

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(NT) Why are you quoting Bob?
Feb 4, 2014 8:03AM PST
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Answer
the known damage you suffered
Feb 4, 2014 9:13AM PST

makes all other parts suspect and prone to early failure. Even if the drive works for awhile, you may discover it's damaged such as a burn mark creating bad sectors, but after you've written data to it. If you do this, make sure to at least run chkdsk set to fix all bad sectors, then check the Events log to see how many bad sectors was found, if any. I'd likely just stuff it with files I wanted to save and then wrap in tinfoil and put in a safe place, archived.

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Reply
Feb 6, 2014 6:50AM PST

Well, I may not have a choice. I just got the new(er) computer via FedEx, started it successfully once and now there is a problem with the 80 GB hard drive. After one successful start I got the dreaded Cont-Alt-Delete loop. I can't complain though, I only paid 16 dollars for the computer on Ebay. The guy forget to put the word computer in the description so I was the only one bidding. I guess my next step is to try the possibly fried 250 GB drive and see if that works.

Either way it's kind of fun tinkering with it.