How NOT to Install a New Drive

[Soopafresh]

Man, did I mess this one up. I needed more space for the tons of video files I've yet to encode, so I was excited to see a 160MB drive on sale at Best Buy for $60. Bought the last one on the shelf...

I've done the following many, many times with no problems, but I'll never do it again - I plugged in the new drive while my PC was on. Sparks and a plume of smoke - the smell of burning plastic

The new drive was still fine. My OTHER 160GB drive (which had all of my video source files on it) was fried. Dead. Kaput. Mahalo.

Live and learn....

[DennisHagemann]

Got to ask, why would you think you could do that?

[redwudz]

I did almost as bad once. I unplugged a drive power connector while the computer was on. It might have been OK, but the connector touched a metal piece on the case. That cost me a new power supply, but everything else survived. Mark it down as something never to do again.

[ROF]

Electronics Case Rule 101

Never put objects inside case(including your hands) without machine being turned off and unplugged.

[otpw1]

I've done the following many, many times with no problems, but I'll never do it again - I plugged in the new drive while my PC was on. Sparks and a plume of smoke - the smell of burning plastic

I used to do this too! And I did it one time too many, like you.
I, fortunately, did this at the expense of a spare 70meg drive on an old AT class machine. I never did it again.

[Noahtuck]

Man!!! if you have done it many many times before, then you were lucky many many times before!!!!
There are some things i will work on while powered up, but surely not installing a HDD or anything in a PC!!!

But that sucks if you lost all that stuff on your other drive!!
But you could have lost alot more!!

WTF ?!?! Are you NUTZ??

[hexxisoft]

wow, i guess some people do need warning labels.

I was always under the impression that you don't touch something when iy has an electric current running through it.

[THE-KEK]

If you're game enough, and the model of hdd you bought is the same as the one you fried, try removing the electronic assembly of the new HDD and put it on the one that was fried. If the actual drive is ok, and the circuit board shat itself, then you may still have hope.

[Soopafresh]

Yeah, Yeah, I know. Learn from my mistake, peeps ! That's why I posted this....

[ZAPPER]

Damn brother, I don't believe I would have told that one.

Bummer that things went up in smoke for you.

I ain't gonna hold it against you, it ain't like I haven't ever pulled a bonehead move, or twenty

Keep in mind that experience is not always the best teacher because it gives you the test before the lesson.

Live and learn, if, you are lucky

[shiet]

all ya'll hot plugging non-hotpluggables
get a mac & prebuilt external firewires

[CanuckGod]

I won't try to preach, because I've done idiotic things before, but damn, I'd never do that in a PC, and I've done a lot of iffy electronic stuff Guess it's time to go back to PC Installation 101.

[Treebeard]

And I thought I've done some stupid things. lol, always remove power

[smearbrick1]

Don't you fix people's computers as a job or side job? My god man... my mother wouldn't try something like that.

[waheed]

Ive unplugged and plug the power cable to a HDD many times while PC is on with no problems (lucky nothing has ben damaged). I have 3 internal HDD and one external. Guess from peoples experiences, I should stop doing it.

However, is it safe for hot plug devices like SATA drives by connecting the SATA power connector while PC is on.

[isogonic]

man, that sucks. thanks for the reminder

[BJ_M]

some sata and scsi drives are hot swappable

[ROF]

My personal opinion is when in doubt do not violate case rule 101. even with hot swappable drives, if they are inside the case I follow case rules 101. There are too many electronics inside I could accidentally touch on my way to pulling the hot swappable plug.

Just another tip for those not in possession of a grounding strap, always lean your working arm on the steel case structure. This will provide you with a grounding source before you begin touching internal parts.

[INFRATOM]

All that said, I ruined a HD when 20 GIG was $250. I took every !precaution but did not earth the static charge!! it could happen that's why it comes in anti-static bags. With age of SATA this problem will go away.

[ROF]

All that said, I ruined a HD when 20 GIG was $250. I took every !precaution but did not earth the static charge!! it could happen that's why it comes in anti-static bags. With age of SATA this problem will go away.

How will it go away? Do these drives have some sub-atomic forcefield blocking them from static charges?

[draganong]

To recover your files off the fried drive, you may want to locate another one of the same model (ebay comes to mind) maybe with mechanical issues (bad bearings) and try to replace the controller board. You MAY be lucky enough to get the drive to work.

However, your carelessness in dealing w/ computer HW may prevent you from doing this properly.

/dragan

[Snakebyte1]

I agree that even hot swappable devices should have the power turned off. A co-worker was swapping out a redundant, swapable power supply on a server. A pin got bent and it took out the server and brought the corporate network down for a little bit on top of that.

Always better safe than sorry if your money or job or reputation or pride is on the line!!

[greymalkin]

this reminds me of a time long ago when i thought i knew about computers but in fact did not.

I was attempting to install a bigger hard drive in my computer..my friend had already put the win98 setup files on the hard drive so I could just boot from a 98 floppy and run setup from the hd folder. A girl was coming over an I just knew she would be impressed with my mad computer skillz when she saw me in there workin on it (ha!).

Anyways..i was having trouble and called my friend..he told me i had to set the jumpers and he kinda described over the phone where they are...i said OK..hung up the phone...got the hard drive in and then found the "jumper" I thought he was talking about...what i actually had in my hand was the peice that is supposed to plug into the motherboard and powers the HD LED. I stuff that into where the jumpers are supposed to go...the girl shows up just in time to see me flip the switch...smoke starts coming out of the computer..she laughs at me..and i turn off the computer. The HD LED cable had melted..I brought the hard drive back to my friends house again simply telling him i couldn't get it to work...he plugged it into his computer and said...."theres nothing on this hard drive..did you format it?"...i just shrugged my shoulders. i did format that drive..a quick "electric shock" format i suppose

[ROF]

@greymalkin

Interesting. Connecting an LED lead to the jumpers or even IDE pins should have had no effect. Surely nothing that would cause anything to smoke or catch fire. You may have burned out the LED but that's about the only damage which should have happened. The hard drive should have been fine as well.

I can't begin to tell you the amount of times back in the day that I would tell people who said their drive was dead to flip over the IDE cable(before they were notched) and everything began working as normal.

[greymalkin]

those notches make pc building idiot proof now..yeah i know it doesn't make sense...i know it definitely plugged in one of the cables that was meant to go to the motherboard...it was a red and black twisted pair..i remember one wire melted and the other did not..

[Soopafresh]

Thanks for the suggestions on replacing the logic board. I might give it a shot- I even have the tiny torx driver to remove the board. The problem is that if the circuitry or design has changed, it won't work. Had a friend buy 2 of the same model number drives to replace the burned out board on his old WD 40GB clunker, and they didn't even physically fit.

Why'd I do it? Laziness and cockiness. Had the side panel off earlier in the day and was running it open. Saw a molex power connector sicking out of the cable bundle and it was too tempting. Didn't want to harsh my mellow by turning on lights in the room, figured the bling lit case fans would provide enough light to see how the power connector was keyed.

[pcbman]

ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING TO DEATH!
and I thought I had a bad day??
sorry for your loss!

and remember, nothing is idiot proof,, cuz sure as were on this earth, when someone says they made it idiot proof, God makes a better idiot!!!

[chesterfield]

i once had a computer running with the case cover off. i went to scrfew in the cover, with the PC on, and dropped a screw in the power supply--lesson learned---DO NOT WORK ON ANY COMPUTER WITH POWER GOING TO IT!!!!!!!

[MackemX]

Yeah, Yeah, I know. Learn from my mistake, peeps ! That's why I posted this....

thankyou for the smile

[lumis]

holy jesus.. i didnt think people actually did this type of stuff.. connecting live power & ide to a hdd..

i mean seriously, that's really stupid..

i've accidentally disconnected the power and/or ide a couple of times while the computer was on, but never connected it..

i dont mean to bag on you or anything, i just find it unbelievable someone would do something like that..

it's like waxing your modem to make it go faster.