SSD fried--is it my laptop or the SSD?

I have a Dell Latitude XT that I purchased used a few weeks ago, and I've been using it with an Mtron MOBI 1.8" 32GB ZIF2 drive. It was working well until this morning, when I tried to boot my laptop and it didn't recognize the drive. I popped the drive out, and it's toast--the cable has a black streak in it, and the hard drive has a soot spot on one side of the connector.

I have several questions about this.

1. Is it more likely that the drive was the issue, or that it was the PC that fried the drive?
2. I have another laptop that I could test the drive in. Am I likely to damage the other PC by testing the SSD? I'm thinking the cable could have been faulty and there's a tiny chance the drive is still good.
3. If you were in my shoes, would you spend $100 or so to get another (second hand) SSD?
4. What diagnostics could I try before deciding whether to replace the SSD?

I was very happy with the performance of the drive before it blew up. Fortunately I have everything backed up, so I didn't lose anything.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Josh

 

I think easiest and safest would be to get a cheap 2.5" hard drive, maybe a second hand, and test it in the Dell laptop.

Then at least you know the laptop works fine (or not).

I don't think it's dangerous to try out the SSD in a different system but I could be wrong.

 

2nd the first idea,,test laptop with HDD.

Cheers
3Fees

 

Even if the SSD is (electrically) shorted, I can't see it causing trouble to another system (it will either work or it won't). This is what I would test first (does SSD work on other computer).

However, if the notebook's power supply/motherboard has failed - this can chew up any other HDD/SSD you plug into it.

Proceed with caution.

Good luck.

 

Solid advice.