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Soopafresh
Craptastic
Joined: 01 Jan 2004
Location: United States
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A friend connected a 15volt power adapter to his 12volt external hard drive. Now drive no workee. The same friend never dusted his 3 year old PC mobo and EVERY fan stopped spinning in it. 
Back to the drive - I would take it the likely course of action would be to try and remove it from the casing and hope the actual drive itself isn't kaput ? Any other suggestions ? External "Silver Casing" Maxtor 160GB
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Video Head
Member
Joined: 10 May 2007
Location: reality
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Assuming you can't get a warranty claim - negligence - then open the case remove the drive and connect it to an IDE or SATA channel and power to see if it works. If it does you can use it as an internal drive or purchase one of those external device boxes to regain the portability. Those boxes have a small controller board in them and that is all that may have blown.
Just make sure to unplug the power supply before opening the case! 
VH
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oldandinthe way
Dissenter
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: With the other crabapples
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If the drive is still under warranty I would not open the case. I would ask for an RMA from Maxtor.
Many companies limit their checkout on returned drive to checking the seals on the product and looking for physical damage. Open the drive and break the seal may be the only way to actually void your warranty.
If it isn't in warranty opening the box and checking the drive is a good idea.
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Soopafresh
Craptastic
Joined: 01 Jan 2004
Location: United States
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Thanks, gents. Apparently, the data is important enough to risk voiding the warranty.
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redwudz
Mod Neophyte
Joined: 07 Sep 2002
Location: AZ, USA
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I'm thinking the drive itself has a good survival chance. The case may have some overvoltage protection or the drive itself may have internal voltage regulation, though if that higher voltage was passed to the drive, it might not last too long. 
Worst case, if it doesn't work when used as an internal drive: It's hard to guess if the internals of the drive are OK or if only the controller board is fried. Professional data recovery is expensive. But that's the next level.
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Nelson37
Member
Joined: 14 Aug 2001
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Recently had a customer with almost the exact same experience. Dead drive. Recovery not worth the effort, was out of warranty.
Recommend careful labeling of external power supplies to match the device.
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