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Electronics on Foreign Soil

P

Peter Hall

n00b
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
11
So I am having a hard time getting my external hardrive to work in Europe. I plug it in, with converter and adapter and it doesn't work. I have used multiple converters with different voltage settings.

What am I doing wrong? Is it possible that the hardrive 'locked itself' as a protection mechanism because I originally used the wrong voltage? It has power, but it refuses to connect to my computer.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated.
 
it's possible the converter doesn't supply enough amps for the hard drive.
 
Zepher said:
it's possible the converter doesn't supply enough amps for the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Unlikely. Doesn't take a whole lot of amperage to run a hard drive. I would say it is more likely that he fried something by giving it the wrong voltage.
 
Erasmus354 said:
Unlikely. Doesn't take a whole lot of amperage to run a hard drive. I would say it is more likely that he fried something by giving it the wrong voltage.
Click to expand...

My WD My Book is using a 12v 2A power brick.

I'd like to see what "converter" he is using.
 
Zepher said:
My WD My Book is using a 12v 2A power brick.

I'd like to see what "converter" he is using.
Click to expand...

That's a NAS drive though and I'm assuming with multiple drives in it.

I'm wondering what kind of drive it is too. If it's a desktop/3.5" size HDD, then those take 12V at least for the enclosure (the HDD uses a separate 5V rail too). Laptop/2.5" drives only take 5V to run if I recall, because they can be run off of any USB 2.0 port on laptops. Not sure on Amperage, but as long as your power supply is at least 2A, it shouldn't be an issue.
 
Peter Hall said:
So I am having a hard time getting my external hardrive to work in Europe. I plug it in, with converter and adapter and it doesn't work. I have used multiple converters with different voltage settings.
Click to expand...

Define: "external harddrive"
What kind of drive?
What kind of "converter"? We talking full transformer or just a plug adapter?
What's the power supply for the thing like? (a pic of the voltage settings will be good there) With the wrong "converter" you could easily ruin something if the supply isn't 100-240 capable.

Is this external HDD for a desktop or laptop?

Also: This is the wrong place to post this given it has nothing to do with a smartphone.
 
T4rd said:
That's a NAS drive though and I'm assuming with multiple drives in it.
Click to expand...

Not really. Of the 3 WD external drives I have (2 NAS and 1 usb3.0) all are 2A and single enclosure drives.
 
T4rd said:
That's a NAS drive though and I'm assuming with multiple drives in it.

I'm wondering what kind of drive it is too. If it's a desktop/3.5" size HDD, then those take 12V at least for the enclosure (the HDD uses a separate 5V rail too). Laptop/2.5" drives only take 5V to run if I recall, because they can be run off of any USB 2.0 port on laptops. Not sure on Amperage, but as long as your power supply is at least 2A, it shouldn't be an issue.
Click to expand...

Mine is a single 2TB WD USB 3 drive.
 
You sure, that the PSU of that unit works between 100 and 250V and do autoswitch? Because if it doesn't auto switch to higher vattage, you just fried your power supply. Though most of modern devices should work without problems. When I was in US, I bought some stuff like electric shaver, and I just add the adapter, and its PSU selects voltage and everything works.
 
Erasmus354 said:
I would say it is more likely that he fried something by giving it the wrong voltage.
Click to expand...


This is my fear! :-(

I was really hoping that this wasn't the case. I wasn't paying enough attention to the converter. But if it was fried would it even turn on? It is still getting power from the power supply, it just doesn't seem to be read by my computer anymore.

Ugh, if it is fried I think I am going to be mad at myself for a very long time. I had everything on there!

Is there a way to recover the information off of the drive if the thing is fried?
 
Peter Hall said:
This is my fear! :-(

I was really hoping that this wasn't the case. I wasn't paying enough attention to the converter. But if it was fried would it even turn on? It is still getting power from the power supply, it just doesn't seem to be read by my computer anymore.

Ugh, if it is fried I think I am going to be mad at myself for a very long time. I had everything on there!

Is there a way to recover the information off of the drive if the thing is fried?
Click to expand...

No backups? Data with no backups is considered expendable.

As to the drive, i'll ask here again given you ignored my questions:
Is this for a desktop or laptop? If it's a desktop then just pull the drive out of the enclosure and hope it's standard SATA so you can plug it in direct.
 
Most times its just a standard sata drive inside these enclosures. So you could potentially get a new enclosure and put the drive back in (laptop) or throw it in your computer (desktop).
 
FnordMan said:
No backups? Data with no backups is considered expendable.

As to the drive, i'll ask here again given you ignored my questions:
Is this for a desktop or laptop? If it's a desktop then just pull the drive out of the enclosure and hope it's standard SATA so you can plug it in direct.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore the question. It's for a laptop. I haven't owned a desktop in years.

As for the converter, I used a few. I can't give you brand names or anything because I didn't buy them. They were leant to me. The first converted between 50W to 1500W, like the one in this picture, but it wasn't samsonite.

13119.jpg
 
So you are using a standard travel converter that converts from (typically) 230V power overseas to 120V. Then plugging in the power supply that came with your hard drive to that? Then the drive might be fine, I thought you were using some sort of universal power adapter and you might have selected the wrong voltage applied to the hard drive.
 
Yeah, you probably didn't break it using the adapter.

But it could have broken some other way. Hard drives aren't bulletproof - every time you move them or turn them on, there's a tiny chance you might be disappointed. This is why we recommend backups!

Looks like you'll be working overtime to try and recover that data :(
 
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