I fried my SSD - a cautionary tale

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birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

Golden Member
Oct 4, 2010
1,176
3
81
Hey folks,

Every once in a while, I get careless/overconfident about meddling with the insides of my computer. Like most here, I'm constantly upgrading my hardware, and I hadn't had any issues for a couple years (other than an external HDD failure due to its being dropped by a horrible ex-gf). Whenever I become overconfident, however, the computer gods find a way to teach me a lesson in humility.

One such lesson took place two weeks ago. I'd just gotten a Mushkin Callisto 60GB, my first SSD, and I was enjoying it. In my SFF case, I tinker regularly with the cooling setup trying to get the perfect ratio of noise to performance. I was installing a pair of Scythe GT 120mm fans for intake. I left the system powered on because I wanted to listen to music while I worked.

This was my error. With everything hot-swappable these days, I've gotten in the habit of powering down my computer only when absolutely necessary. I will not be so cavalier in the future.

I went to disconnect the molex pass-throughs for my old fans, not realizing that the SSD was connected in the same loop via a molex-to-SATA adapter. So I accidentally disconnected the adapter on the molex end.

"Oops," I thought, "I just unplugged my system drive; no problem, I'll just plug it back in... it's hot-swappable, right? Maybe windows will recover from the disconnection and I can keep listening to my tunes."

Well, as soon as I reconnected the molex to the SATA adapter, the system rebooted. Upon reboot, the SSD was no longer recognized by the BIOS. I switched ports, power cables, etc... no dice. I connected it to an external enclosure and my laptop didn't recognize there was a drive plugged in it all. My brand new SSD was well and truly cooked.

So... RMA'd, replaced, now up and running again. Thankfully I still had my old boot HDD on hand so that I could use the computer for the two weeks it took to get the replacement. Although it was a drag going back to the spinner after experiencing SSD responsiveness.

Just thought I'd post this in the hope that it might save somebody else a major hassle.

tldr: Turn off your computer when you're messing with its insides.
 
Makaveli

Makaveli

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2002
4,916
1,504
136
Good post and sorry for the mishap.

However that is a mistake I would have done at 14 not now :)

Many years ago I was doing the same working inside my machine while it was running and had a molex connector drop into a side panel fan while running which broke all the blades on the fan. Since then machine is always powered off when I have to work inside it.
 
frostedflakes

frostedflakes

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2005
7,925
1
81
Just abruptly cutting power to the drive shouldn't have killed it. I could see it corrupting your OS install or something like that if there was data in a buffer than hadn't been written yet, but I can't figure out how it could have killed the drive.

Always a good idea to shut the system down and remove the power plug before messing around inside it, though. Too easy to accidentally stick an appendage in a fan, short a connection, or do something that could cause problems while the computer is still on.
 
tweakboy

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
9,517
2
81
www.hammiestudios.com
Oh man this is a sad sad tale. Yes birthdaymonkey I understand your itch to want to tinker with your setup,, I have that disease too lol, But ya if you unplug the hard drive while its working,, its fried. Its like pulling out the SATA cable or power which you did while in operation. What a sad story I feel for you.. maybe it was a lesson God wanted to teach you. To relax and use your computer for positive things instead of OCDing about the setup and the tweak and the OC.

Also Mushkin must have a warranty your dead SSD. Im sure of it. Just RMA it get it replaced,, but I feel bad you lost your OS you gotta redo everything.. sighs.. unless you have a image ,,, gl,, let us know how things go.

This is a lesson to power down your PC shut if off then work with it and cables etc.. gg and gb
 
A

alaricljs

Golden Member
May 11, 2005
1,221
1
76
They are hot swappable, but if you take a really close look at how both the power and data connectors are situated you'll see some special staggering of the pins. Ground first, data second, power last. In some cases data and power happen at the same time.

Since your data was already connected and you were fiddling with a molex plug, there's a really good chance you did the +12/+5v power first and cooked the controller since the power wanted to go somewhere and there wasn't ground (for at least a little moment).
 
M

Mark R

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
8,513
16
81
frostedflakes said:
Just abruptly cutting power to the drive shouldn't have killed it. I could see it corrupting your OS install or something like that if there was data in a buffer than hadn't been written yet, but I can't figure out how it could have killed the drive.
Click to expand...

If the power lines were connected in the wrong order, it could easily damage the drive.

Hot-swap connectors are specifically designed so that the connectors are guaranteed to connect and disconnect in a specific order: Connect ground first, then power, then data - and disconnect in the opposite order. They are also designed in such a way that you can't connected them incorrectly - or if you do, the wires don't actually connect. You can force a conventional hard-drive connector together, and the wrong wires will connect (you don't even have to force that hard).

If you connect, e.g. 12V without connecting ground - but leave a SATA cable connected, then the 12V could run through the electronics to the drive's ground connection (bringing the whole drive to 12 V). If the SATA cable is connected to the mobo, it might have a ground signal connection. The effect for the drive is that the SATA cable appears to be connected to -12 V - this can damage the delicate high-speed circuits.
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

Golden Member
Oct 4, 2010
1,176
3
81
alaricljs said:
They are hot swappable, but if you take a really close look at how both the power and data connectors are situated you'll see some special staggering of the pins. Ground first, data second, power last. In some cases data and power happen at the same time.

Since your data was already connected and you were fiddling with a molex plug, there's a really good chance you did the +12/+5v power first and cooked the controller since the power wanted to go somewhere and there wasn't ground (for at least a little moment).
Click to expand...

Mark R said:
If the power lines were connected in the wrong order, it could easily damage the drive.

Hot-swap connectors are specifically designed so that the connectors are guaranteed to connect and disconnect in a specific order: Connect ground first, then power, then data - and disconnect in the opposite order. They are also designed in such a way that you can't connected them incorrectly - or if you do, the wires don't actually connect. You can force a conventional hard-drive connector together, and the wrong wires will connect (you don't even have to force that hard).

If you connect, e.g. 12V without connecting ground - but leave a SATA cable connected, then the 12V could run through the electronics to the drive's ground connection (bringing the whole drive to 12 V). If the SATA cable is connected to the mobo, it might have a ground signal connection. The effect for the drive is that the SATA cable appears to be connected to -12 V - this can damage the delicate high-speed circuits.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I figured someone here would have an explanation. I was reconnecting a molex adapter and not a real SATA power cable, so I guessed that the failure was related to this... and your explanations make perfect sense. Now that I've heard them, I feel pretty dumb; I should have thought about why IDE drives are not hot-swappable while SATA drives are. At least I learned the lesson without wrecking any other components. And because I'd just bought the drive, I was within the DOA period, so the retailer even paid all the freight for the RMA. In other words, my carelessness cost me nothing but my time.

Ironically, I never would have worked on my computer's innards with the system turned on a few years ago--and certainly not when I was 14 and tinkering with my dad's 386. But the knowledge that drives are now hot-swappable gave me a false sense of security. Needless to say, the power will be off for all future under-the-hood endeavours.
 
LokutusofBorg

LokutusofBorg

Golden Member
Mar 20, 2001
1,065
0
76
birthdaymonkey said:
Ironically, I never would have worked on my computer's innards with the system turned on a few years ago--and certainly not when I was 14 and tinkering with my dad's 386. But the knowledge that drives are now hot-swappable gave me a false sense of security. Needless to say, the power will be off for all future under-the-hood endeavours.
Click to expand...
Your mistake wasn't working with the computer on, or knocking the power cable out of the drive. It was trying to plug it back in. I killed a drive doing that like 10 years ago, and that lesson has stuck with me ever since. Losing power: not bad. Reconnecting power: not good.
 
fffblackmage

fffblackmage

Platinum Member
Dec 28, 2007
2,548
0
76
frostedflakes said:
Always a good idea to shut the system down and remove the power plug before messing around inside it, though. Too easy to accidentally stick an appendage in a fan...
Click to expand...
Yeeeaaaah... I don't think I'm learning until I lose a finger or something.
 
Z

ZimZum

Golden Member
Aug 2, 2001
1,281
0
76
I'm old school, I wont even open up my case unless that bad boy is unplugged.
 
A

AstroGuardian

Senior member
May 8, 2006
842
0
0
tweakboy said:
Oh man this is a sad sad tale. Yes birthdaymonkey I understand your itch to want to tinker with your setup,, I have that disease too lol, gb
Click to expand...

Yes we all know you have that disease. The really sad thing is that you are allowing yourself to tinker with other folk's computers too by blurring out insanities on the forums.... which is kinda expected from you
 
E

Echo147

Junior Member
Aug 4, 2010
23
0
0
I've shorted the system out twice (with sparks!) hooking up fans while live :D

BFG PSU protected both incidents, but I'll never learn...
 
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