Posted by Dave on April 25, 19101 at 14:49:12:
I recently did a very stupid thing, I got a new computer and was so eager to see how my old software ran on it I quickly rushed to install my old HD into it (The PC is an HP Pavilion 9870). In rushing I accidentally plugged the both the ribbon connector going into my new drive (the one that came with the PC) and the one going to my old drive in UPSIDE DOWN!!! Can you believe it, I swear I really know what I'm doing here, it was just a momentary lapse of reason. Anyways, the new drive survived the debacle and I was able to extract the pin that was pushed in to about half of where it was (so now I have one pin that's half as long as all the rest on that drive, but the drive works....thank goodness). My old HD was not as fortunate and the pin shot right through the drive, which might be hard to picture but it kind of looks like this:
PINS ARE HERE (Each Arrow signifies a row of pins)
|
| THIS IS WHERE THE PIN WAS PUSHED THROUGH
| |
| | ______________________________________
| _ | | |
|>| |<---| | |
->| |_________| |
|________________________________________________|
Obviously this picture is not drawn to scale or anything but you get the idea (the groove is actually only about 1/4 inch deep and the drive is a 5 1/2 inch drive). Anyways, what I really want to know is if there is any way I can repair this. I tried soldering the pin back in but the place where it broke off was too far into the drive and I couldn't get a good joint fixed. Can you buy just the pin connectors? I could try to remove the one that's there now and put a new one on....it's worth a try because aside from software I had some important documents on that drive that I really would like to recover. Sorry for the lengthy post, but this is kind of a strange question. Thanks to anyone who can help me...feel free to email me directly if you have a good solution.
-=dave=-