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OWC enclosure FRIED two HDDs - help!

B

badlydrawnboy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
1,531
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Just a warning for those considering this enclosure...

I put two HDDs in it. At first it wouldn't turn on, which should have been my first clue. After unplugging and plugging back in several times, it did turn on, but the drives didn't mount. And it was making a strange sound.

I removed the drives and put one of them back into a single-drive Icy Dock enclosure. The drive wouldn't mount for a long time, and then a "this drive isn't readable" box popped up. Thankfully I had backed up the data on this drive, because it appeared to be gone. I then clicked "initialize", but nothing happened. Opened Disk Utility, and the drive is listed as an external FW "CREMAX TECH CO, LTD". The options in the Erase tab are greyed out, and there seems to be nothing I can do to erase or re-initialize the drive.

So then I put the other HDD in the Icy Dock enclosure, and the exact same thing happens.

Does this mean both drives are dead, and somehow my Icy Dock enclosure is no longer working too? In one morning I get two fried hard drives and two failed enclosures? WTF?

I guess I'll be in the market for another enclosure. Any recommendations?
 
Actually, the CREMAX TECH CO, LTD icon stays in Disk Utility even when I power off the Icy Dock enclosure. When I right-click on it to eject it from DU, I get the spinning beach ball of death. Forced DU to quit, and now it won't re-open. What's going on here?
 
Uh - exactly which OWC enclosure? They sell several dozen different ones.

Are you looking a 2 disk RAID 1/0 enclosure or one that just does 2 disks as JBOD? FW or eSATA? 2.5" or 3.5"?

Need just a little more info to help :)
 
I have nothing but great service form OWC. If you did draw the short straw and got a bad unit which fried a couple drives, I would contact OWC tech support and see what they can do for you. I seriously doubt the response is "tough luck".

I have several OWC enclosures and have never had any trouble other than a power supply brick dying. They are, in fact, my first and only choice for external drive enclosures based on my experience.
 
No. This is it.

I managed to get one of the drives mounted in my Icy Dock enclosure, and the data is still there, so that's a relief. The other one still won't mount.

Seems the Icy Dock enclosure may still be fine.
 
Well, I did talk to them and they of course agreed to take the enclosure back since it's obviously defective. But they pretty much said "tough luck" on the data being lost on the drives, they can't assume it was their enclosure that did it rather than the drives just failing. One of the drives seems to be okay, at least.

I guess I could try another OWC enclosure, but after this experience I'm wary. Everyone speaks so highly of them but this isn't the first issue I've had with their products. I think some of them are cheaply made.
 
badlydrawnboy said:
Well, I did talk to them and they of course agreed to take the enclosure back since it's obviously defective. But they pretty much said "tough luck" on the data being lost on the drives, they can't assume it was their enclosure that did it rather than the drives just failing. One of the drives seems to be okay, at least.

I guess I could try another OWC enclosure, but after this experience I'm wary. Everyone speaks so highly of them but this isn't the first issue I've had with their products. I think some of them are cheaply made.
Click to expand...

My personal opinion is the OWC stuff is made at least as well as any other consumer level drive case (better than a lot of the junk out there). And while I wouldn't expect them to pay for data recovery, I would ask them to take a look at the returned enclosure and work with me(you) on a replacement drive if they discover some obvious power issue that would have led to drive failure. Then again that case appears to only take 1.5TB drives max, so we are not talking a lot of money these days (and since it is USB only - its not like you need a Caviar Black).

Not sure what to recommend as an alternative that is higher quality than OWC. LaCie is well thought of, but everything else I am aware of are generic, cheap made-in-China enclosures that are rebranded. There isn't much variation in the internals on these things, so I think the crap shoot is about the same no matter where it comes from as far as design/materials.

G-Tech is another "name brand" line, but I bet the internals are no different.
 
badlydrawnboy said:
I guess I could try another OWC enclosure, but after this experience I'm wary. Everyone speaks so highly of them but this isn't the first issue I've had with their products. I think some of them are cheaply made.
Click to expand...
You'll have about the same amount of risk in terms of this type of hardware with any vendor (products very likely made by the same ODM, as there's not that many - all they do is change the label, unless the customer <vendor> paid for an enclosure change to separate the appearance from the rest; same guts though).

So the only thing that really separates them these days, is customer support.
 
philipma1957 said:
there is a huge chance you killed the drives.

I do not like any external case that has a built in hub. ministacks and I had 3 different ones were brutal.
Click to expand...

And don't feel bad about making a mistake and frying a drive - I just accidentally inserted a FW400 cable in backwards the other day (it spread the sheet metal around the jack and went in fairly easily even though they are supposed to be uni-directional) and fried a $500 Apogee Duet audio interface.

S**t Happens - sooner or later you lose concentration for a second and something fails the smoke test. And I'm an Electrical Engineer by training, so I should know better :eek:
 
This one is cheap - only $30 - but it gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
badlydrawnboy said:
Just a warning for those considering this enclosure...

....Opened Disk Utility, and the drive is listed as an external FW "CREMAX TECH CO, LTD". .
Click to expand...


That says it all. This is a cremation mini oven, not a drive enclosure.
 
Well, one drive appears to have survived the ordeal, but the other is definitely dead. It was working perfectly until I put it in the OWC enclosure. Ah well, I've learned my lesson in the past and I had backed up the data, so I guess it's time for a new drive.
 
badlydrawnboy said:
Well, one drive appears to have survived the ordeal, but the other is definitely dead. It was working perfectly until I put it in the OWC enclosure. Ah well, I've learned my lesson in the past and I had backed up the data, so I guess it's time for a new drive.
Click to expand...

Yup - man up and get out the credit card :) When I smoked the Duet, I was really pissed for about 30 seconds, went and had a good shot of Jack Daniels and got out the credit card and overnighted another one via Amazon.

The good news is a) you had backups and b) drives are cheap these days. Just bought 2 Samsung 2 TB guys from Newegg a few days ago for $89 each with shipping. They are 5400 RPM, but plenty fast enough for Time Machine or cloned backups.
 
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