Broadband modem & Lightning!

rock22

I just had a lightning strike, not directly but within a mile, and my model went. At the same time there was a bang, and a network disc drive, WD Cloud, went. It also fried the power supply to the disc drive.

When i switched on the modem, the WIFI worked OK but no DSL light came on and no internet connection. I have managed to replace the modem, and is working ok so i assuming the line is now OK again . Disc drive seems dead.

Just wondering, is this unusual for a strike to affect a connected (Ethernet cable) disc drive? And is there something i can do about my connection to avoid this in the future?

Could i use the vodafone modem to connect to the internet and have a Cloud disc connected to a wifi router so that it cannot be affect directly?
I am fairly comfortable around computer hardware but i am not too up to date on networking. But if i had an internal wifi network router which was independent but connected, via wifi, to the modem then would this give me the protection I need? And is it a simple plug and play set up.

This is a home installation with, usually, 2 laptops, printer, tablet, phone, chromecast and smart tv connected but not all in use at same time.

Thanks for any help

PS. Am I wasting my time trying to get data read off the disc drive. It is a WD cloud , single disc.

Marlow

The ground of the phone line is not the same as the ground of the mains.

Hence, when phonelines get hit by lightning, which is not uncommon, it blows anything connected to the phone line up.

If that is a router, anything connected to said device, then gets fried, too.

Well. And in a lot of places, it also travels from the router (or a dect phone with power plugged in) into the power circuits around the house and fries more appliances that way.

/M

ED E

The gas blocks are meant to prevent this, meant to. They're a bit of a crude solution.


If you buy:
A) A switch (8Port Netgears are decent)
This or similar

And fit it properly then it should blow before 5kV flows through your computer.



About the WD Cloud - If you're lucky only the enclosure is dead and the drive itself is ok, and the drive is SATA not a proprietary connector. Then reading it should be easy.

Marlow

I've seen ISDN NTBAs fly off the wall 3 times .. leaving burn marks behind ..

From lightning.

And DECT phones, especially old crummy ones, are perfect conductors to fry any other electrical appliance in the house.

/M

rock22

Thanks for all the replies. Only got back online today.