[vox-tech] blown power supply = fried MB and HDs

[Matin Hashemi]

Oh Jonathan! you just reminded me of a similar problem.... a few years
ago I wanted to install Linux for the first time. It was on my own
desktop PC at home and I ended up formatting a wrong drive :(  I was
very sad and as you can imagine, as a high school student I didn't
know much about technical stuff.... but you what? I finally found a
solution :-) there was a software by OnTrack which helped me recover
some of my music and picture files.

I know I know, your case is VERY different..... But all I'm saying is
that don't give up, it's your data, recover it

Good Luck :-)
Matin

On 1/16/07, Jonathan Stickel <jjstickel1 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I went to turn on my 3 yr old custom built desktop on Friday, there was
> a load "crack" sound, and the computer would not boot.  After spinning
> the dvd drives, it would immediately reboot; no bios display or
> anything, even after clearing cmos and unplugging all the drives.  I
> eventually traced it to a blown capacitor in the power supply.  I went
> and bought a new power supply, installed it, and got the same behavior.
>   OK, the motherboard is fried; went back out and bought a whole new
> computer.  I installed my old hard drive to find that it is fried too!
> Now I am really unhappy: several years of photos, game data, personal
> files are all gone! :-(
>
> In a confluence of bad timing, you may recall about a month ago that my
> hard drive was acting up (in hindsight, maybe related to a failing power
> supply).  So I installed the hard drive I had been using to for a
> backup.  I hadn't got around to establishing a new backup procedure yet,
> but I was going to over the weekend, honest!  I thought if the drive
> were to go bad, I would get some warning.  I've learned several lessons
> from this: do not build a computer from cheap parts and especially do
> not use power supplies with the "raidmax" brand.  Do not go more than 24
> hours without having some form of a backup.  If part of a system is
> acting funny, the whole thing may blow without warning.
>
> Anyway, I am wondering if there is still any hope in recovering the data
> on the hard drive.  From what I can tell, the drive is not even spinning
> up.  The bios tries to detect it, but it times out.  My guess is that
> the drive platters are OK, but the circuitry to run the drive is damaged
>   in some way.  Perhaps just the power circuit is bad.  Is there
> anything I can try?  I know I could send the drive out to a recovery
> service to the tune of several hundred dollars, but my data isn't worth
> that much; just sentimental stuff and a huge inconvenience
>
> Regards,
> Jonathan
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