Poorly Hard Drive

djnield

I have tried geting advice elsewhere without success so here goes on MSE...

My IDE Hard Drive got damaged when I was pulling out the IDE cable and now 1 of the pins on the HD has been pushed into it's case.

Does anyone know if this problem is easy to repair?

The HD is unusable now - as the PC won't recognise that it's installed. But it has so much data on there I would really like to get it working rather than buy a new empty drive.

woo

not sure if this is fixable - you might have to send it off to a data recovery company

djnield

Thanks for that....I was kinda suspecting it wouldn't be an easy solution.

I suppose I now have to decide if the price of my data is more important than the £40 it is gonna cost to get a new drive.

Many thanks

durain

if the pin is only bended into the case, you can slowly bend it up (use small screwdriver, etc) and then plug in the IDE cable. but if the pin is snapped off, then i dont know!

StockportGerbil

Hi!
Data recovery companies charge the earth and are very much a last resort for data that is 'priceless'. If the pin is merely bent then you should be able to bend it back with a screwdriver. If the pin is pushed through you may be able to push it back with the screwdriver.

Good luck!

blinky

If the pin isn't recoverable then one possibility is to get hold of one of the same model and transplant the PCB. They normally just connect via a ribbon cable. It would be the same approach that a recovery company would use but would charge you a small fortune for.

scheming_gypsy

or you could try a botchit job. if you have an old floppy or other hard drive remove a pin and push it slightly into the relevent hole. 'hopefully' when you connect the IDE cable again there's a chance it will touch the other pin and pass the signal through.
There's no 100% chance it'll work but it's not going to kill you to try.

djnield

Thanks all for your replies. As you can see from the delay... I haven't been online in a while.

In the end I got a new HD, as it happens exact same model, but only just seen the message from blinky.