BROKEN PIN

[Guest]

I own a Quantum Fireball EX (10.2gb) on which I stored some important office files, now, I take this hard drive around whenever I want to transfer these files (theyre around 3gb each...) and I accidentally broke off the lower left IDE pin when trying to install it as a slave drive... is there anything I can do? to recover data. I live where hard drive data recovery is not a considerable option... I still kep that pin. havent tried it for fear of shorting out something.



www.realdelivery.com
cel: 00573-2224498
mauricio@realdelivery.com

 

[Ncogneto]

Yikes! now that is a toughy for sure. Is there anything left of the broken pin at all? Succesfull recovery will all depend on if you can manufactor something to restore contact to where the broken pin was. Without actually seeing the drive I can only offer a possible solution.
I suggest you start by getting an IDE ribbon and locating the exact placement of where the broken pin co-ordinates to the hole on the hard drive. In this hole you will need to make your self a pin to place into that hole that will protude out in the right length to restore contact to where the broken pin was. You will have to experiment a little with what to use perhaps a pin of an old computer part somewhere? You may also try to get a small glob of a conducting material such as a small piece of silver conducting pencil to place on the very end of the pin (you can get these at radio shack, many users are using them now to overclock there duron's by closing the bridges.) When you think you have it right carefully put the ide ribbon into the hard drive and using the handyman's best freind ( duct tape or electrical tape) secure the ribbon as tighly as possible to try to maintain connection with the broken pin. Before you do all this make sure you have a freshly formatted drive ready and installed. Boot your machine up auto detect the disk's in bios ( hopefully the temporay fix is working) from there use some good copy software to copy the contents of one drive to another something like the full version of Western digital EZ-drive. Give it a shot you dont have anything to loose, your other option is to take the drive to a data recovery place and trust me they are not cheap.

 

[Guest]

alright, thanks for the idea.. I still keep the broken pin, but its somewhat bent.. ill try to un-bend it, and maybe "glue" it back in... I dont live n the states, so finding that ele-pencil you mentioned for the duron overclocking would be a somewhat hard thing to do. Ill report as soon as I have results.. I tried plugging it in without that extra pin (sometimes manufacturers include useless pins in the IDE array, due to mass production issues) but it does not work...
thanks for the input. If I were to send you a picture, would you be able to get into more detail on this issue?

www.realdelivery.com
cel: 00573-2224498
mauricio@realdelivery.com

 

[Ncogneto]

possibly, worth a shot

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!