Circumventing the IDE interface, need options and guidance.d

[brinstar117]

I have a hard drive that's fully intact, save for one item. One of the pins has been pushed down and bent out of working order. I believe the only way for me to salvage my data is to solder a wire from the broken pin contact and splice it to the corresponding wire on the IDE cable.

I am no longer going to use this drive (too bad I only had it for 3 months). I just want to transfer the data, all my valuable mp3's and music videos were on it

Here's the biggest obstacle, I have never soldered anything in my life and I do not own any soldering equipment. I need recommendations for types/models of equipment I need.

Luckily (well, not really) I have a test drive to use, it has the same problem, but I'm not concerned about the data that's on it.

 

[imustbecrazy]

Wrong forum. Try hardware,

By the way, my $.02.

Is it really worth it. Throw it away.

Let's see. My Master theisis. About to save and print.... Can't read from disk. Noooooooooo!

Is the juice worth the squeeze.

You know, I'd have my Dr. in Comp Sc if I'd only spent $60 buck to buy that 40 gig hard drive from Best Buy and not try to fix the broken one I have. You know, the broke one would have been a good game platform for UNCRUCIAL DATA.

 

[brinstar117]

Perhaps you misunderstood. This isn't about the hard drive itself, it's about electronics and reconfiguring the way it operates outside of safety designs. I have never attempted such a thing and I believe that this is a good place to start.

After all, this thread:

Laptop: taking apart a Toshiba Sattelite

has been posted in the Highly Technical Forum without being locked. It basically is asking for guidance for working with hardware.

Also, I did not operate this drive when it was faulty. I accidentally damaged it and want to recover as much as I possibly can.

 

[imustbecrazy]

"about electronics and reconfiguring the way it operates outside of safety designs"

Sorry to rain on your parade. Still don't see the point. You can't change the voltage coming in, so you can't change the spin speed. Your not the manufactor with a dust free environment, therefore, you can't disassemble the drive and change it relative position to the disk.
Also, why did they sell you a smaller hard disk than what it could have been. Yes, Maxtor sell 50 gigabyte disks that are capible of 100 gigabytes.

Plus, why hasn't someone else figured out ways to OVERCLOCK a hard drive.

I understand what you would like to do, but don't think it's possible.

 

[flot]

I have no idea wtf imustbecrazy is talking about.

If the pin is bent - you should be able to unbend it. If it is just flat out gone, it really won't be that difficult to solder your way around it. And it'll probably work fine as a temporary fix.

If you don't have any soldering experience - save yourself the heartache of destroying the drive, and find someone who can. If you're in college surely there is a EE lab around where someone could do this. If not, look for electronics repair shops etc. Someone should be happy to make a single solder joint for $5-$10, and since the contacts are so tiny that's a good deal compared to you going out and buying a soldering iron, probably screwing it up, etc, etc.

Plug the wire in, figure out which pin doesn't connect, cut that pin out of the wire, solder from the bottom of the drive to that wire, voila.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

half of the pins on a floppy drive, IDE drive, and SCSI drive (single ended) are ground. Meaning you have a 50% chance that the pin can be broken off and the drive will still be usable. if not, it's a simple matter of just soldering a wire on.