Broken pin on hard drive

lukin

Brilliant, I've just broken a pin on a 40 gig hard drive.
I suppose I can kiss goodbye to this particular piece of hardware, or does anyone know of a miracle solution?
Soldering, yeah I know but where will I get that done?

SouperComputer

well have you actually tried it?

assuming it not working, I guess you could try and change the logic board or the connector.

Either way its gana be a pain in the arse!

Where do you stand on warranty?

lukin

Well I broke it myself so the warranty is void.
It's actually identifying it in the boot up but nothing happens after that
What do you mean by "change the logic board or the connector"?

SouperComputer

well the logic board the the PCB underneath, if you had a donor you could change it, the chance are very slim of getting one though.

you could change the connector, but you will need a solder bath, or a decent extractor to take the connector off the boards and put the good one on the board.

Did you have an OS or data on the drive, ie have you gotten to use it yet?

as far as the warranty is concerned, could you use the excuse that " it was like that when you got it" or maybe just send it back and say it doesnt work, and you errr, cant figure out why!

elmer

one other qucik option may be to cut the ide cable(the wire corresponding to that pin) and solder it onto the stub of the broken pin on the pcb

If you're willing to bring it to me(i'm in south dublin) i'd even give it a shot

SouperComputer

hmm, yea you could wire the pin on the mobo directly to the pin on the hd's PCB.

lukin

The pins next to the one I broke are slightly bent so I won't get away with sending it back (I got it from Komplett and they probably read this board!)
Thanks for your offer, elmer but I'm a bit too far away from you.
I don't know about cutting the IDE cable either, I reckon I've done enough damage as it is.
There was data on the drive, but I formatted it before I damaged it.

tribble

if you're at all handy with a soldering iron the solution(s) are pish easy.

1. replace the pin (bit hard as it would have to be correct lenght , width and a good stong joint)

2. (the easier option) - locate the wire on an ide cable that correspondes to the broken one - carefully cut about 1 inch either side of this at the drive end - bare it and either wire it directly to the correct soilder tag on the drive or use another (short as possible) wire as an extension to do this. try to make the connection well as possible or you may end up with signal bounce otherwise.


NOTE - are you sure you broke one - there is supposed to be a pin missing on the drive towards the center...


tribble

lukin

Yeah, it's definetley broken, it's the very last one on the top row by the jumpers.
I actually found the pin on the floor last night by pure luck so I might have a go at re-attaching it. I don't have a soldering iron though.

phaxx

This happened to me once. I tore a pin out of an old floppy drive I didn't want, put it into the row on the hd and spent a few mins soldering and wiggling it around until it was firmly attached. Worked well since that.

If you're really stuck I'd be willing to have a go for you, but you'd have to post it to me or something. (Wicklow)

oneweb

Originally posted by lukin
Yeah, it's definetley broken, it's the very last one on the top row by the jumpers.
I actually found the pin on the floor last night by pure luck so I might have a go at re-attaching it. I don't have a soldering iron though.

Try putting a tinchy bit of something that'll fit into the associated missing pin's hole in the connector (enough that the pin will stick out a bit). Then put the pin into that. push the connector in fully and there should be enough grip and contact to keep things going...

lukin

I reckon my best bet is to try re-attaching the pin, it can't do much harm anyway.
Thanks to all.

Tenshot

If the drive is still broken, it's definitely worth a shot at fixing it.

The pin you said was missing sounds like Pin 1, which is the reset pin so it won't have to carry any high speed data signals. Once you get a good connection to it (to avoid a reset in the middle of a read or write), it should be fine.