Raspberry Pi 4 Board - Toasted

Hello All,

I did the best i could to find the most appropriate area for this, so i apologize if this is not the best place for my inquiry.

I had a power surge yesterday (which has never happened in my life) and it appears to have bricked/fried my Pi4. My Pi had an external SSD that i (hope) is still functional. When I power on the Pi, only the little green and red light come on - no blue SSD light and no ethernet green/orange light at all. And, of course, no access to anything.

I use Nabu Casa and I thought it was backing up my instances, as when i do the HS updates, it always asks if i want to create a backup copy, which is always checked ‘yes’ however, i havent ever needed to access this feature. After doing some online research/youtube etc., i cant find where to actually retrieve the backup or the best way to go about recovering my instance - perhaps this backup function doesnt actually reside with Nabu Casa.

I know i committed the ultimate sin of not knowing exactly where my backups were living, but i thought i was covered. I dont need a ton of direction/ play-by-play, just a general compass as to where to start, or if i should simply replace the Pi and plug in the SSD to it and see if it boots up.

Any basic guidance is greatly appreciated.

Jesse

The backups are not on Nabu Casa - they are stored locally. Are you running Home Assistant OS or Supervised?

Edit: can you attach the SSD to another computer to verify that it is accessable/working?

Also, I’ve had rPi’s show the light and not do anything before, it may mean that it’s having issues getting to the network, in which case usually you can unplug the network and plug it back in again - or you may be able to use the wifi instead (if the whole card isn’t fried). I have also had just the network board fry too, could go either way.

In any case, hook up a monitor to the mini HDMI port and see if it’s really toast or not, it may yet be salvageable and at the insane prices people want for new rPi’s today it’s worth investigating.

1 Like

Hi Max,

Thank you for reaching out.

I plugged in the SSD and it powered up and i can see the files, so i think it is safe. I dont have the HDMI adapter to plug in a monitor, so maybe ill pick one up online to test, but I suspect the board is fried. I am operating HA OS.

1 Like

Hi Co,

Thank you for the suggestion.

I plugged in the SSD and it powered up and i can see the files, so i think it is safe. I dont have the HDMI adapter to plug in a monitor, so maybe ill pick one up online to test, but I suspect the board is fried. Hopefully, i can just replace the Pi board and call it good.

Hi All,

I was able to get anther Pi4 for rather cheap, and the original SSD seems to be good. Have you ever just swapped out the Pi with the SSD and turned it on to work? I have done this with PCs before, but never with a Pi and i dont want to brick the new Pi. Any direction is greatly appreciated.

Jesse

Hi All,

I was able to replace to Pi 4 board and it fired up.

Thank you for all of your help.