{"id":1525,"date":"2022-01-21T09:28:32","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T14:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/brd\/wp\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2022-01-21T09:49:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T14:49:46","slug":"catastrophe-through-impatience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/2022\/01\/21\/catastrophe-through-impatience\/","title":{"rendered":"Catastrophe through impatience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried really hard to learn over the years to stop myself from making mistakes due to impatience. The challenge is real, and it still continues to this day. I may average an event like this at least once a year, if not every 6-months or so.<\/p>\n

A few days ago I desperately needed to access an old external HDD that required a power brick that I didn’t have any longer. I looked around but couldn’t find one, so I became frustrated. I figured that if I were to damage the drive, it could be in my best interest since that would prevent me from wasting more time should I actually get access. I would potentially be searching for a 1GB needle in a 3TB haystack using something as arduous as Testdisk. Maybe if the drive malfunctioned, I would save myself time?<\/p>\n

It probably goes without saying that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I did something that I shouldn’t have done.<\/li>\n
  2. I did something that I knew ran the risk of destroying the device.<\/li>\n
  3. I did it anyways.<\/li>\n
  4. I let all the smoke out of my HDD.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    As exciting and utterly predictable as the outcome was, I was surprisingly undeterred. It turns out I could have bought the power supply for less than $5 on Amazon and waited a few more days.<\/p>\n

    Also undeterred, I decided to poke at the drive to find out what really went wrong. If nothing else I knew I had to dissect the drive to destroy the platters and claim the magnets. It was very exciting when I spotted something on the board that clearly cooked. I didn’t recognize what that part did, after all I’m not an electrical engineer, or even a skilled hobbyist. So I did what any self-taught fool would, and I searched Google for the part number on the device.<\/p>\n

    It turns out I am not the only person to make this stupid mistake<\/a> with an external HDD. That’s cool.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    And it turns out that the piece is a Transient Voltage Suppressor (TVS) diode. A very nice to have, but actually unnecessary piece to the HDD. The purpose of the TVS is to protect the remaining components of the system from a sustained over-voltage event. It may be oversimplification, but the TVS acts a lot like the old-school fuses that would blow in my mom’s ’74 Ford. The fix to my problem? Just remove the TVS!<\/a> Removing the TVS permanently is not recommended, since the HDD now has no protection against a sustained over-voltage event. I’m grateful I have a fairly robust UPS that has a built-in line conditioner and should be cleaning up the voltage before it gets to the HDD. To be clear I will fix this, but not until I have found that file I am missing.<\/p>\n

    To make a long story short, I have caused myself significantly more work than I would have had I been patient and just bought the $5 adapter and waited. I know get the great opportunity to buy an $0.80 part to fix my old HDD<\/a>. Why would I do this? A 3TB HDD is still respectable and is better fixed than discarded.<\/p>\n

    This post represents the first time I’m going to try and catalog my mistakes that are made through impatience. Since the time before this was when I melted a server, and the time before that was a catastrophic failure of a software component, I’m very curious what my next iteration will be. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed it will cause less work, also cost $0.80, and be entirely preventable if I stop and remember that it will take more time to fix than simply being patient and waiting for the mail.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve tried really hard to learn over the years to stop myself from making mistakes due to impatience. The challenge is real, and it still continues to this day. I may average an event like this at least once a year, if not every 6-months or so. A few days ago I desperately needed to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,10],"tags":[347,346,345,344,348,349],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-or-free-horse","category-tech","tag-electrical-engineering","tag-electronics","tag-hdd","tag-patience","tag-solder","tag-tvs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1529,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}