Dead charger for external HDD: what can I do?

Voyager2002

I hope that someone can help me think clearly about my options.

About three years ago, I bought an external hard drive to back up all my data. (Most of the really critical stuff was also burnt to DVD and so is safe, but a lot of photos were only stored on the hard drive.) The caddy and power supply came from Komplett, who no longer do business in the UK and their home website is in Norwegian, so not much chance of help there!

Anyway, my teenage son used the hard drive in his room and quite what happened is a mystery: he talked vaguely about the power indicator on the case flashing a few times, and then nothing. What is certain is that nothing happens when I try to use it now. Even the power supply indicator light does not come on when connected (and the fuse is still good). The obvious thing to do is try with another power supply, but this one uses a four-pin mini-DIN and I have not found another like it. Buying on Ebay would cost around twenty pounds; would involve waiting for it to be sent from China; and of course the prblem might not be just the juice!

I have considered buying a completely new caddy, but I don't know how to remove and re-fit the drive. A local computer shop has offered to do this for me if I buy the caddy from them, but their price is 45 pounds while caddies are available on Amazon for 20!

Have I missed any obvious solutions?

fwor

Personally I would avoid the new power supply route. As you say, it may be a fault in the caddy that killed the power supply, and I've also found that there are two different ways that the mini-DIN connector can be wired.

I'd get a new caddy and reinstall the HDD in that. Fitting it in the new caddy will be easy, and while getting it out of the old one may be a pain (probably screws hidden under labels, etc) you don't need to care about breaking the casing.

Before buying the new caddy you will need to find out if the HDD has IDE or SATA connections on it, so that the new caddy will match.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Wall Wart - all caddy drives use the same voltage, but while some have different plug in's most have identical plug in's, - borrow a wall wart and use it to test yours, cost's nowt!

- if the problem is the wall wart, come back here and we will tell you exactly where to go and what to get
- if it's not the wall wart, you need to test the hard drive and the USB lead before you spend money on a~n~other~caddy

There is nothing whatsoever daunting about swapping [ SATA or IDE ] a HDD, 4 screws, two plugs you can't get in the wrong way round, 5 minutes!

weegie.geek

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Wall Wart - all caddy drives use the same voltage, but while some have different plug in's most have identical plug in's, - borrow a wall wart and use it to test yours, cost's nowt!

And risk feeding 12v down a 5v line, directly into the drive electronics?

Just buy a new caddy, it'll cost you 15 quid and you won't break anything.

Voyager2002

Thank you for the suggestions.

I think that what I call a power supply is what Richie calls a Wall Wart (I had to look up the term to understand -- on first reading I thought it was advice to look at Wallmart!). Anyway, the cable that ends with a four-pin DIN is securely attached to the "Wall Wart" so the only way to try a new one is to get a compatible unit.