Slashdot Mirror
How Can You Straighten HDD Pins?
racerx509 writes: "I just did something thats probably going to cost me much. I was reinstalling my hdd after trying to ghost the partition for another pc, when I jammed the cable in wrong. The cable is keyed and the keyed side was in correctlty, so I figured that it was going in right. However, I have severly bent several of the pins. The HDD will no longer detect even after I attempted to straighten the pins. Pin #11 has receded into the aperature and pins #15 and #16 are seriously bent. I've straightened them out with tweezers as much as I can, but it looks like this drive is gone. I would replace it, but i have some very important data on it. Does anyone know of a way I could straigten the pins and pull receded ones? If not, what about a good data recovery service in the Atlanta area?"
A data recovery service should be able to replace the connector; they'd probably just replace the whole controller board. You might also be able to get it done at other computer repair shops, or by sending it back to the manufacturer.
the magnetic force, that is.
the connector pins are metal, therefore magnetic. just use a strong pencil-style magnet and you should be able to pull those sunken pins out thru the plastic just fine.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
depending on what type of drive, of course, (some have pins that are less accessible than others), you can do this:
/e /y c: d:"
snip the end off of an old IDE cable and break (or dremel) the plastic off of the part of the drive that protects the pins. then you a steady hand or a friend who's good at precision soldering. you can solder each of the pins on the drive to the wires of the IDE cable.
then its just a matter of buying a new drive and connecting the 2 together and running
"xcopy
to migrate the data. of course, you can still use the drive with the cable hard-wired, but i wouldnt rely on that for any real length of time.
Somewhere on this page I have hidden my signature.
Check out AMP here., they make connectors of all sorts, probably even make the same part.
1.Disconnect the Controller ie: remove it from the drive case and unplug the header, (the armature connection.
2.Ground yourself (get rid of any static on your hands) or wear a geek strap.
3.Un soulder the eide connector (that is if it's the seperate type) and then get a new one. They cost about 2$us ea.
4. Re-soulder the new connector
Depending on the style of connector (make, type of drive) It may be a seperate EIDE connector, however if you can determine the part number and make you can probably purchase one from either Digi-Key or Newark Electronics, they are usually made by either AMP (div. of Tyco electronics) or one of two other connector manufacterers. although I'm pretty sure AMP makes them too. But for your sake you should contact the drive manufaterer and ask them directly as they may actually give you the part number of the connector you need and were to buy it.
Hopefully you didn't fry anything by attempting to plug it back in.
And if you did follow the first post. and replace controllers but be sure to get the exact model you already have, then you pull a switch a roo with the controllers and image your old data and RMA the drive.
Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment ~Tesla
...always keep a collection of different sized paperclips handy. When cut to the right length, they've replaced more than one broken pin (disclaimer: my brother once fried a motherboard that way) but on the upside, I've used paperclip "pin-shims" for broken SCSI and PS/2 male connectors.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Buy an extension IDE ribbon. Usually, the pinout is reachable on the bottom of the HD (i.e. you can see where the plug is soldered onto the controller board. By looking at the controller board you can figure out which plug-pin is which lead on the board. Plug your extension cord to the HD. Cut the wires of the ribbon that you know don't work. Solder said cut pieces onto the board pins directly. Mount HDD. Remove all data ASAP. Throw away HDD.
I've done something pretty close in the past. The HDD is still mounted on a 486, still chugging along. Don't consider my past luck any sort of good omen for yours. You may fry the HDD, your controller and/or the motherboard.
I've done this before and got things working again. For bent pins I've always seperated them just enough to get a header over one of them and used the header to straighten and seperate them. Basically, just slide something between them if they're shorted and use the header to do the actual straightening.
Pins that receded are more iffy, if they're no longer exposed I don't know what to do. If they're still exposed use tweezers or a pair of needle nosed pliers to pull them out. Use a header to straigthen them. The problem here is that they may now be loose, I've never had this happen but if it did I'd try a drop of glue at the base of the pin.
Remember, the pins are fragile (as you've already found out) so a lot of force isn't necessary.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
If you're not handy with a soldering iron, or some of the other approaches listed don't help, this one is pretty easy and has worked every time I've done it:
-Buy a harddrive of the exact same make and model
-Unscrew and disconnect the controller board from the drive. It should be held with about 4 tiny screws and one ribbon cable. Don't snap this cable too you ape!
-Transplant the controller board, reconnecting the tiny cable correctly and actually screwing all the screws back in (I'm not good about screws).
-Plug it in and go to town.
Back in the old days (circa 1998) I worked in a computer store while I was in college. For some people, the two or three hundred dollars for another drive (to throw away) was cheaper than data recovery when they'd screwed it up.
Good luck.
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
BE STATIC SAFE: Earth your self.
Use the *right tools* and the *right technique* fine tweezer nose pliers, like these,
http://www.internettrains.com/xurtweeznosp.html
Clamp the Drive, and place the end of the pliers past the bend, and just squeeze, DO NOT try to bend the pin back you are more like to break the pin.
You can also use the same pliers to pull the regressed pin.
Depending on the value of the data, you could also do do what Data Recovery Companies do. Use a Donor Drive of exactly the model and swap the electronics, this is surprisingly simple to do, usually 4-6 screws and an film edge connector.
STATIC SAFE: Earth your self.
When I've lost the drive electronics once, I just swapped the drive's circuit board with an identical one. Usually a few screws on the bottom come off, and voila!
The trick is finding an IDENTICAL drive to swap boards with. I was lucky that I bought several drives at once with identical revisions and close serial numbers. But, it might be worth a try.
If you have a good soldering iron, make sure you get silver solder, not the plumbing stuff. Radio Shack is probably the easiest place to find some. Take an old IDE cable and plug it into the connector with the broken pins (preferrably NOT an ATA66/100 but an older ATA33 cable as the wires are bigger). Then determine with a multi-meter which pins are fubar, i.e. no continuity (open, no connection).
Then carefully determine which small wire in the ribbon cable is the right one(s) and cut it loose from the drive side of the ribbon cable. An Exacto Knife should work well. Go SLOW and be as careful as you can. You can separate the wires in the ribbon cable. Watch out for exposing adjacent wires you don't want to short it out.
Then strip the remaining insulation off the IDE wire(s) and solder it to the control board where the connector is attached. Hopefully, it will be easy to get to it and you won't have to disconnect the control board from the drive. If this is the case, try to prop it up so it doesn't short out against something like the computer case. Lay the board on something non-conductive like small piece of wood.
Since you wanted to replace the drive anyway, I guess money isn't much of a problem here:
I suggest you buy a same (similar might work) drive, unscrew the controller board and replace it with the one from the new drive. Presto!
I frequently buy boxes of broken hardware at hardware markets, and usually there are more that one drive of the same type in there, and I have fixed a lot of drives this way...
If you are really brave, you can even straighten the pins later (when you get the board of off the drive) and possibly have two drives then!
Sorry for the poor grammar/spelling
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
And, as a lesson...Always make backups before doing upgrades, installs, un-installs, etc.
Based on his original post, I'd say that's the real irony behind the whole thing. He was trying to ghost the drive!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
I usually use the barrel of a mechanical pencil to straighten pins on electronic components.
Just take out the lead, insert the barrel over pin and straighten it.
e-mail me and let me know what brand and model of drive you're talking about. I might be able to help.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I went on a trip to Florida last year and took my IBM Thinkpad 600 and the original 6gb hd that I installed AOL on it. I was going for a week so aol was my best choice becouse I could sing up and then cancel with out paying when I was in my hotel room.
Anyways I took the drive and just threw it in my suitcase. Everything worked fine, swaped my drive in Tampa and then came back to cold germany. On the was back I also chucked my hd in the case, well one of the pins bent slightly and I forced (like an idiot) the drive in to laptop. I ended up busting the connector on the motherboard.
Long story short I ended up fixing the HD connector with tin foil and tape. but when I was putting the laptop together the pcmcia busted. all the frikin' pins fell out! somehow I fixed that too, but this time using nail clippers to trim the pins.
Suprisingly my Thinkpad is still kickin' ass with the hd working (loud as hell!) and both pcmcia slots working!
Last month a freind wanted to install windows on a webplayer and needed a laptop with a cdrom, he asked me and I gave him the look. uhh sure.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
My nightmare on this was doing much the same thing, but instead of damaging pins I forgot to rejumper the drive. IDE chain with two master devices = thoroughly horked partition tables on both.
I was able to recover one of them using a package called Hard Drive Mechanic that basically examined the drive looking for the start and end of the partitions, but the "working" disk that had several partitions of different types and some intermediate empty space was unrecoverable and had to be completely wiped.
That sinking sensation when you plug the drive you were going to back up back into its original system and it's completely dead is just no fun at all....
fencepost
just a little off