Did my hard drive spontaneously combust?

[Superman]

So, my desktop PC crapped out today. After it suddenly shut off, some smoke began to emanate from the case, and an odor of something like melted plastic filled the room. I quickly unplugged everything from it and made sure there was no actual fire or anything. Luckily, there wasn't. I was sure that the inside of the case must have melted into a big gob of slime or something though; the room smelled like what a toxic waste dump must smell like.

Anyway, I just now opened it up. Amazingly, nothing really looked out of the ordinary until I looked more closely at the hard drive. As soon as I pulled it out, it became pretty obvious that it's what was causing the "toxic" fumes. There are also a couple of small burn marks on the logic board (causing the odor, I think).

Do hard drives usually get this hot? The drive was mounted in the case well away from most other hardware, so it either spontaneously combusted or somehow melted itself. I haven't tried to recover any data or anything from it yet. This doesn't look good.

[Superman]

Just took a couple of pics so to show the actual damage. Anyone know what happened here?





So, anyone want to venture a guess on what would happen if I were to try and recover some files by plugging a USB/HD adapter into it? The adapter itself requires it's own power connection, so would connecting the damaged HD back up to a power source be bad? Like when the Ghostbusters crossed the streams or something?

[Sea Skimmer]

Those fumes are very toxic, no quotations needed.

Looks like that upper chip was defective, enormously overheated and burned up the board until it failed itself. You might have had a capacitor burst too. The bigger bottom chip probably short circuited and burned up in the aftermath given the lesser damage. Hard drives always run very hot, you can actually get clip on hard driver cooler fans, but this shouldn’t happen without either very bad case ventilation or a defective drive. Who assembled the computer?

The odds of that hard drive ever working when it’s plugged in again are zero. No way will it work with the board melted and burned right by the connector and two major chips destroyed. If you plug it in you risk causing another fire or worse a short circuit which could destroy other hardware very easily. With that massive of damage you have no way of knowing how the wires have been crossed. However it is quite likely that all that would happen is nothing… but do you want to take a gamble like that? I’d only do it if I had a spare crappy computer for the hookup. You'd be in better shape if a bullet had hit the thing.

It might be possible for a specialist to attach a different control board or something, but I am highly dubious of that.

[charlemagne]

It might be possible for a specialist to attach a different control board or something, but I am highly dubious of that.

Isn't that what data recovery labs are for, too? Using cleanrooms for exactly that purpose, replacing busted hardware to access the still intact actual discs. That is, if the disc is in fact still ok and hasn't been fried while the board burned out.

[Mr Bean]

The contacts are not that badly damaged. I'd have to see the reverse side to tell you if the drive containment or spindle arm was compromised. It should be possible to replace the control board and return the hard drive to operation.

Now the question is do you have the two hundred dollars a software retrieval expert will charge to do that. But I agree with Skimmer, looks like a capacitor was defective and burned out. I'd worry less about that HD right now and start checking the motherboard or power supply. If you have not already tested, you might have an entire dead system on it's hand.

It's possible your power supply went, not the hard drive, the HD going simply because the voltage regulators dumped 110v's AC into the motherboard and attached devices. Start checking the rest of the computer and if possible test each part in a know good computer.

[Superman]

Ah. Well, I just noticed that this piece of shit is still slightly emanating fumes, so I think I'll be getting it out of here about now. Thank christ for storm drains and their ability to make bad things "disappear" when you no longer want them around... (I'm kidding).

95% of what's on the drive is actually backed up. There were just a few MP3's and Ebooks I was hoping to recover, but they're pretty easily replaced. I thought if there were a simple way, like using that adapter, then I'd do it but anything beyond that would be a huge waste of time and money.

Unfortunately, I think I know what happened here. Not long ago, the computer was moved into a confined and poorly ventilated desk slot. Worse still was the fact that I built the computer using one of those oversized cases that weigh a ton (it had a big Fry's rebate, so it's not like I had a choice or anything) so it just barely fit the inside of the slot. Breathing room was practically nil. And to make matters worse yet again, and I probably shouldn't even admit this, the temp monitor software actually tried to warn me a couple of times that the computer was in the process of overheating. I just snickered in Homer Simpson-like fashion and thought "pfff... overheat..."

I just really love learning things the hard way, what can I say.

[Uraniun235]

Worse still was the fact that I built the computer using one of those oversized cases that weigh a ton (it had a big Fry's rebate, so it's not like I had a choice or anything) so it just barely fit the inside of the slot.

What slot? I would think a bigger case would have more room for components.


...are you one of those people that puts their computer inside their desk?

[Beowulf]

It sure sounds like it. Now admittedly it can be a good idea for some situations, but generally it's retarded, because they damn computer ends up overheating. My last desk had a little cubby, but it didn't have a door or back on the cubby, so it could breathe perfectly fine. Most desks that have a cubby stick a door over it, and have a back, so there's no airflow, and the poor thing ends up hot enough to fry an egg.

[Superman]

Worse still was the fact that I built the computer using one of those oversized cases that weigh a ton (it had a big Fry's rebate, so it's not like I had a choice or anything) so it just barely fit the inside of the slot.

What slot? I would think a bigger case would have more room for components.


...are you one of those people that puts their computer inside their desk?

Errr, didn't mean to say "slot" actually, I meant the desk's compartment. And yes, I used to be one of those people that puts my computer inside of my desk... up until about last night.

A bigger case has more room for the components, but if the case itself is inside narrow compartment that prevents air from flowing, the fans can't do their job. I know. I proved it. If it were a smaller case, then it would have had more breathing room in the desk compartment. I didn't think that's very much fun though, so I crammed a big one into that barely fit.

[Superman]

Updating this in light of new some new information.

I just now noticed that the computer's DVD rom drive has the EXACT same damage the hard drive had. I just now opened it up, thinking a disk may be stuck inside, and realized that the damage on the electronic board looked almost identical to that of the hard drive. Could this be mean that the computer's damage was maybe caused by an electrical surge? Is it strange that at least two of the PC's components have almost identical burn damage on their logic boards? Any information that anyone can offer would be appreciated. I'd really like to try and prevent this from happening again when I get my next computer running.

[Beowulf]

If both drives have the same problem, then likely it was caused by your power supply failing. Which could be caused by a lack a ventilation.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah an overheated power supply can lose its ability to regulate voltage, which could easily cause burning. It’d make more sense, now that I think about it, that your lack of ventilation would damage the PSU before it made a hard drive cook on its own.

Also I asked some people, computer engineers who know more then I, and apparently not only can you replace the control board on a hard drive, you can in most cases order a replacement boarder direct from the manufacturer and they are supposed to be fairly easy to put on. So if that drive was anything special in terms of capacity it might be worth looking into repairs after all.