external sata hard drive problem

**kitt350** · 03-06-2010, 12:51 PM

I have a segate 320gb external hard drive that has been working great for the past couple of years. This morning my wife knocked it off the table while I was using it and now when I plug it into the usb port all it does is beeb like it isn't getting power. I have heard this peep before when using a cable that wasn't inteded to power a usb device on this hard drive and it beeped like it didn't have enough power to run it. I took it out of its case and inside it is a sata hard drive. At the end of all the connections there are 4 pins just like a normal hard drive power pins just smaller. Is it possible to use these pins to power the hard drive? I am jsut wondering because I lost all of my car pictures and mp3, mainly worried about my car pics, and would just like to try and recover these. I had backed up everything else on that hard drive to dvd's but didn't do my car pics or mp3's yet. If anyone can help me with this I would greatly appreciate it. Let me know if there is a certain cable to purchase to use those pins to power the hard drive or am i just screwed and lost everything on there?

**OldSpark** · 03-06-2010, 02:04 PM

AFAIK, external drives are merely standard HDDs in a case.

The "smaller" normal HDD power pins surprises me - SATA uses a flat connector (longer than the SATA signal connector), though early Western Digitals also had the traditional 4 pin (Molex) - but normal sized. Seagate may be different.

I will often swap internal & external drives into/from external cases or USB interface dongles.

**kitt350** · 03-06-2010, 03:07 PM

It has the flat connectors and that is what it is mainly connected to but with the flat ones connected it seems as if it isn't getting power as if maybe a solder point broke somewhere.
Here is a picture of it.

You can see that connector at the far right side. I am hoping to be able to power through this but if not I am guessing the hard drive is fried.

**OldSpark** · 03-06-2010, 07:59 PM

The LH connector is a standard SATA power connector so try that instead.
If your PC has SATA data interface (the middle connector), then it should have SATA power as well.

Otherwise there are 4-pim Moles to SATA power converter cables. (As usual, try to get Y or fan out cables - ie, 1 to 2 or more; not 1:1).