Like the headline above says, today was a bad day as I saw my Western Digital 160 GB external hard drive literally go up in smoke — electrical smoke to be specific — instead of coming on simultaneously with my computer as I attempted to start my day in the blogosphere. Technology, it seems, is waging battle against this blogger.
You might recall a few days ago when I posted about my recent experience with Sprint: Sprint Customer Lost in ‘Customer Service Hell’. Apparently, Spring must have some sort of direct line to Western Digital.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that my Y2K-vintage laptop would “live” longer than the drive I bought 13 months ago to serve as a backup for my aging and soon-to-be-replaced Toshiba laptop. After all, it simply sits on a flat surface and sucks up data. How hard can that be?
Anyway, you’re probably wondering how the death of the Western Digital hard drive effect the daily operation of Bob McCarty Writes. At this point, I’m not entirely certain of all of the ramifications. Stay tuned, however, as I try to figure it out.
Finally, I forgot to mention I tried unsuccessfully to solve my “issues” at their web site before resorting to using their online contact tool. In response to my input, I received the following friendly e-mail back from Western Digital at 9:16 a.m. CDT today:
“Thank you for contacting Western Digital. We are currently experiencing higher than average email volume and will do our best to respond to your question as soon as possible.”
Now, it seems, I’ll have to wait.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Jim M. // Aug 27, 2007 at 11:43 pm
I just had the same problem happen August 25, 2007 to MYBOOK 160gb external drive. It too literally started to smoke. Luckily I was home and started to smell it. I pulled the power cord out of the drive and nearly burned my hand it was so hot. Had it 15 months so it is out of warranty. Took it apart and the “female” power receiver on the PC board is defective. Have a picture of it shorting out, and sparking when the power cord is plugged in. Let me know what WD says.
2 hotoffthepress // Aug 28, 2007 at 6:00 am
Jim — My brother’s a computer geek, and he says I can probably replace the power supply for the drive. I’m gonna give that a shot. Thanks and good luck!
3 Jim M. // Sep 1, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Nope replacing the power supply will not do it. It is a defective in the PC board when you open it up. Actually the female receptor for the power supply. Doesn’t look like a transformer but may be. Read a lot of stories on this problem. I tested my power supply right at 12volts like it is suppose to be.
Easy test for power supply. When you smelled smoke did it come from the drive or the power supply? The power supply (or DC converter) is the big black box in between AC cord and the Male adapter that plugs into the drive.
I just bought a Seagate 500gb FreeAgent Pro, it comes with a 5 year warranty. Will never buy WD again. My warranty actually ended 7/8/07. I called WD and they told me too bad warranty is up, even though it is an obvious defect. I am sure they will have a recall sometime in the future.
Jim
4 hotoffthepress // Sep 1, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Jim — Thanks for the info. I’ll have to see if one of my techster friends can repair it.
5 Mitesh Rami // Sep 5, 2007 at 4:31 am
there might be the problem in your cable, check replacing it first
otherwise you do have techster friends who can repair it.
6 Corey // Sep 6, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I have a WD2500JB that is a Smoker as well. It’s in warranty, however has around 200GB of customer files. I’ts definitely on the hard drive board. I’m hoping I can swap boards to get the data off, and go with a different brand.
7 tumadre cabron // May 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
western digital rocks. you nuckle heads just had a bad batch.
8 hotoffthepress2 // May 26, 2008 at 9:37 am
Bad batch? Let’s hope they’re not involved in the medical equipment industry.
9 lilgurlseishi // Aug 15, 2009 at 9:38 pm
aiyahhh my 160gb WD mybook is smoking now after two years of effective storage. booo no more warranty. i don’t know what to do with it now.
10 WDCrap // Oct 6, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Mine went up in smoke too. Circuit board is fried on one side. I started smelling smoke, didn’t see anything wrong anywhere, replaced the power supply with a brand new one, fired up the computer, walked away, smelled smoke, unplugged the computer. WD blamed it on the power supply because I replaced it with a new power supply… since “there is no power being supplied by the hard drive”. They lost this customer with a now melted power plug on my new supply and 3 pin power connector on my smoking hard drive.
11 Abdul rahman // Jun 14, 2010 at 9:00 am
I have a WD not external, it was 320GB Green Edition.
well mine went smoking too after only one month i bought it,,,a “beautiful” heavy-density white smoke went slowly,,,and smells like “Iodine” then rapidly pulled the power cable off, I noticed that my friend plugged the power cables the opposite way, but i didn’t freaked out wen i saw the smoke,lol
i was thinking that is easy to fix, just keep cool!
and guess what?!
it did work again, fully!!!
and it’s been like 12month, since the incident.
thank God
Now my friend’s Toshiba 320 External USB 2.0
hour ago, was just smoking,,,not once, twice!
but good for him he still on warranty, but he need’s the data so bad, hope they can fix that.
Good luck every one.
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