[Ironside]

I think I inadvertently put the wrong power lead into my external hard drive and now it's not working. The external hard drive is off by Hewlett-Packard media Centre, the power lead is I think of a Hewlett-Packard laptop and they both have the same Jack plug which is why it fitted perfectly. If this is the case, is the hard drive completely knackered?

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There is a good chance the hard drive and your data are fine, but the enclosure itself might be toast.

If you look on both power supplies, there should be small image icons of the plugs, and they should show what voltage is on which plug contact. If the two are different, you may have damaged the enclosure - and hopefully only the enclosure.

[Digerati]

There is a good chance the hard drive and your data are fine, but the enclosure itself might be toast.

If you look on both power supplies, there should be small image icons of the plugs, and they should show what voltage is on which plug contact. If the two are different, you may have damaged the enclosure - and hopefully only the enclosure.

[Ironside]

Yes, I did actually check that and the powersupply is 18 volts, the external HD requires 12V. I know it was a stupid thing to do but both power leads look exactly the same. Anyway, that's good news that there is still hope that I can retrieve the data, I am not worried about the hard drive, that's easy to replace, however I can't replace the data.

So what next? It seems to be a sealed unit

[Digerati]

It seems to be a sealed unit

I suspect it snaps together and you need 3 hands and a strategically placed tongue to pry open the case to access the actual drive. The drive "should" be a standard PC or notebook drive.

[Ironside]

So, do you think it is fixable?

[Digerati]

IF the drive was not damaged by the wrong power supply, and you are able to get the case open, I think you should be able to install that drive into another enclosure, or into another computer.

Note when reading the power supply specifications, it is not just the voltage ("18") that matters, it is the type voltage, AC or DC, and if DC, the polarity on the center pin, positive or negative. So typically a power supply will specify the output something like +12VDC, or 17VAC. They usually specify a current value in milliamperes too.