fixzed A broken hard drive! (tech tip)

[lykan]

Hey guys thought I would share this with you. My hard drive was acting up, working not working etc. So I decided to pull it and see what was up.

So while taking out the drive, the damned power pins broke off (two of them) Grr Son of B!

Anyhow I got crafty, and did some razor knife/soldering and fixed it right up. Come to find out a bad solder point on one of the pins is why it failed in the first place.

Here's the fix, First, I cut off what was left of the female plug (the shroud) then I cut a U shaped channel so the homemade pin would sit in there perfect.

I used a peice of 1/8" solder, cut it to size, filed it to a point to make the pins and made them a litle long so when they melted they'd be the right size..I only had to replace two of the pins. Working on mechanical defects of hard drives is usually 80% failure rate for me. Kinda ghetto, but it got the job done and now I can back up my data

Pictures are louder than words.. here you go. (3pics)

 

[FastEddy]

I'm all for fixing broken things.. Great Job
However, When it comes to my HD, if I even think about thinking there is something wrong with it Its out the door and a new one is installed.

I hope it hold.

 

[Rolex]

It might work now, (congrats, by the way) but solder has a tendancy to oxidize quickly. If you lose the contact, cut new pins from an old or unused plug and solder them in.

 

[supersavage]

If you need parts, I got a whole drawer full of defective hard drives...ya know, they just might come in handy someday...

 

[lykan]

Oh, I thought I included this in my post(musta forgot to add it)...the fix was to get my D drive up while i move my important stuff over to C: Then the drive will be tossed in the closet as a backup just incase. I learned a long time ago that I tend to forget things when I am doing a fresh install and loose them in the move. (read forget to back up a file or two)

I like to put my quickest drive(seek and RPM) as C: and install a stripped down windows. I also install any other important (want them fast) files to my c:

The rest of my stuff office files, MP3's, movies etc backups (LOL), on a big slow D: drive... that way if windows bites it, I don't loose my important things, and I feel free to reformat without worry of loosing something I forgot I had.

BTW what Do you guys do as far go as backing up favorites program preferences etc?
I never used to, but now I backup all must customizations so I don't have to fiddle around so much to get it back to where it was(INF files CFG files etc..) favorites

Since I got this dell about 1.5 - 2 years ago I haven't had a hitch except this drive, and this drive was out of my old box

BTW that solder is pretty weak rosin core stuff, but I had no idea it would corrode. That's good to know for soldering on electronics.

 

[kwong2001]

Damn lykan, i've been having problems with my HD just like you. I have a poop computer and have tried for about 2 or 3 days straight to load an operating system in it. I've loaded several different kinds of partitions, reformatted it half a dozen times (and not the quick format), still won't install an OS.

I've just about given up on the computer. I'll probably end up building one whenever I get the money.

 

[Rolex]

It doesn't corrode, it oxidizes. That means the surface dulls considerably, and you might lose your contact eventually. Since it's just a temp fix, it won't be a problem.

 

[lykan]

Cool thanks Rolex..
BTW Kwong.. check heatsink make sure it's got a good contact and it's clean. Make sure comp is away from a heat source.

Check ram (and cards) and make sure it's seated right

Oh yeah! check jumper settings(hard drive) and cables. Try putting the hard drive alone on one cable, and the CD rom alone on the other. Sometimes they don't like to play

What do you mean by "won't install" Does it freeze or lock? or just sit idle?

 

[mcvickj]

Nice job on fixing the drive. Like others have mentioned I wouldn't rely on that drive for too long. Always the best to err on the side of caution. Especially with a hard drive and your data. Its nice that companies are making larger drives for a cheap price. However that means when that drive does bite the dust you loose more data.

 

[bigfreak]

lykan, that's pretty cool man. I'm all for busting out the sodering gun when you need a creative electrical fix.

If you want a really really fast hard drive, try some RAID 0 (striping) that is some FAST $HIT! 2 HDs twice as fast. 3 HDs three times as fast. Only thing is more the drives you have the higher the probablility you'll loose your data. Loose one drive, and all your data is gone. I used to do this regaurdless on my Quake 3 gaming PC. There was no data, it was all about the speed.

 

[kwong2001]

Cool thanks Rolex..
BTW Kwong.. check heatsink make sure it's got a good contact and it's clean. Make sure comp is away from a heat source.

Check ram (and cards) and make sure it's seated right

Oh yeah! check jumper settings(hard drive) and cables. Try putting the hard drive alone on one cable, and the CD rom alone on the other. Sometimes they don't like to play

What do you mean by "won't install" Does it freeze or lock? or just sit idle?

Even after installing the proper partition, it'll say I don't have a valid windows xp disk. It says that for windows 2000, 2000 server, NT 4.0 also. Mandrake Linux freezes the computer the minute it starts to add a partition.

The CD Rom and HD are on different cables. Pretty sure the ram is in there good and tight. I've got two 128mb cards in there. At least one has to be working

 

[lykan]

explain "don;t have a valid xp disk"

If you've tryed several differen't Os's what did each one do?

Did It say
You didn't have a valid registration key?
It couldn't find a required file ?
Or did they just freeze in the middle of installatin.

The exact nature of the errors could help us porblem solve for you.

If it is random erros, and always a different one, get a windows boot disk, and run scandisk on the drive.

It is very possible if it is randomly locking that something (a component is bad), and when it heats up it starts to fail or instead of completly failing it drops random errors.

Just ike witrh nitro the more specific you are the better off we are at finding a cause.

 

[kwong2001]

It would copy the setup files onto the harddrive, then when it came to the partition part, it said I need to have a valid windows disk. It mentions all the operating systems that were out before windows xp. Like NT, ME etc

None of components are getting hot. I've installed it when the computer has been off for several hours. It's just hopeless lol

 

[bigfreak]

it said I need to have a valid windows disk. It mentions all the operating systems that were out before windows xp. Like NT, ME etc

You have an "Upgrade" of Windows Xp. It wants the setup CD from one of those older OS's so they can prove you're upgrading.

Way back in the day of Windows 95, you had to chunk in the first of the Windows 3.11 installtion floppies when installing the Upgrade version of Windows 95.

Find an old Windows 98 CD and toss that bad boy in there when it asks.

 

[kwong2001]

Oh poop, you're right, it is an upgrade. WTF?

 

[SilentHunterKellen]

lmfao, I've talked to kwong and he has spent countless nights reformatting his HD...hope that solved his prob. I hate fixing harddrives. As eddy said, your probably better off gettin a new one