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lacie external usb hard drive, power connector pinout?

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b

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Dec 21, 2009, 9:30:41 AM12/21/09
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/MiniDIN-4_Connector_Pinout.svg/170px-MiniDIN-4_Connector_Pinout.svg.png

found this drive in a skip. uses a 4 pin MINI DIN connector but i have
no idea of pinouts. the drive is a LACIE PORSCHE and the only model
ref no. I can see is 1023504145065F 3U2

any ideas?
B

Baron

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Dec 21, 2009, 5:23:18 PM12/21/09
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b Inscribed thus:

On mine (not Lacie branded but physically similar) pins 3 & 4 are ground
and case common. Pin 1 is 12v pin 2 is 5v.

Before doing anything I would check that the 12v line from the drive
actually goes to pin 1. The same goes for pin 2.

YMMV.
HTH.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

oir...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 11, 2012, 9:37:05 PM1/11/12
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Thank you tons for this post. I was able to revive our porsche design lacie hard drive by this post, and move all of its contents onto a usb eternal hard drive of todays standards.

Pins 3&4 are ground, Pin 1=12V, and Pin 2=5V. I doubly verified by continuity testing each pin to the red, yellow and black wires that power the drive. The standard is maintained where Black is Ground, Red is 5V and Yellow is 12V.

It may also prove useful to others that this is the correct pinout for the
LaCie Mini Hard Drive (FW 400 only)
4-Minipin
708014


b

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Jan 12, 2012, 7:36:09 PM1/12/12
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Glad you got a result. As a bizarre coincidence, I picked this up
again only last week during a clearout after about 2 years! (I got
distracted by other more pressing things, and the drive had got
buried in my workshop).

I ended up putting the drive itself into another usb caddy I have to
test it, but it turned out to be defective, so I junked the lot. Looks
like we have 'closure', as the psycho- babblers would say ....!
-B

whit3rd

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Jan 18, 2012, 7:02:58 PM1/18/12
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On Thursday, January 12, 2012 4:36:09 PM UTC-8, b wrote:


> I ended up putting the drive itself into another usb caddy I have to
> test it, but it turned out to be defective, so I junked the lot.

How'd you test it? Many LaCie drives were mated to Macintosh
systems, it wouldn't show up on Windows. And, if the drive
mechanism was bad, the case/interface is probably still fine,
why junk it?

josephkk

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Jan 19, 2012, 11:19:27 PM1/19/12
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On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:02:58 -0800 (PST), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Not LaCie, but i have had more cases die than drives.

YMMV

?-)

b

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Jan 21, 2012, 8:43:12 PM1/21/12
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The drive squeaked mechanically on startup and shut down which was
rather disconcerting.
Attempting an xp repartition/reformat gave errors/damage messages
the lacie caddy had no psu , I didn't even have a suitable plug to
connect one, in any case.
At the end of the day, it cost me nothing...
.B
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