I was troubleshooting a Dahua NVR that would not power on today. The fan would just move slightly then stop. After some troubleshooting I figured out that it would only power on properly when the hard drive was disconnected from the power lead. When a different hard drive was installed it booted right up. I have an external drive bay that I use for data recovery - it also will not power on with the suspect drive installed. The power light turns on and then the dock loses power almost immediately.
I have seen plenty of hard drive failures, but this is the first time I have seen a hard drive failure that prevented the device it is installed in from powering on. Have you seen anything like this before?