External hard Drives smells

My Maxtor external hard drive is smelling after I plugged it in. Since then it is not working. Is this an electrical problem? Is my data safe? what do I do? Please help

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Anonymous

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Posted on Feb 24, 2009

Anonymous

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Joined: Feb 04, 2009

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Argggg!

Not good. Are you sure the smell is originating from the drive and not the power supply? If you remove the drive can you smell the odor from it?

If you do then chances are one of the components is shorted. This is not good at all. If your data is REALLY important to you you can purchase a similar drive and exchange the drive circuit board! This is probably the ONLY way you may be able to access your data.

Disconnect the drive totally and restart your system. Do you still smell the odor from your system? It may be the power supply?

There is also silicone paste that goes between the CPU and fan. In time that silicone can bake and cake in to hard lumps... so it MAY be the CPU you are smelling?

Will your system boot with a different hard drive connected?

Again, you give us so little information!

Good luck!

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