This is something I've never done, but I'm thinking that it could work:

1. Figure out which wire in the cable corresponds to the missing pin.

2. Either (a) cut that wire close to the connector, strip a little of
the insulation, and solder a "bridge" connection from that wire to the
circuit-board side of the broken pin; or (b) stick a thin pin or needle
into that wire and connect from it to the circuit-board side of the
broken pin.

This is going to take a great deal of care, and if you get the
conenction wrong you may be in BIG trouble.


If you are utterly unable to reestablish a contact for that broken pin,
*and* you are able to find an identical drive, you *might* be able to
recover the data by removing the old board and substituting the board
from the good drive.

This may not work, because people tell me that a board could have been
"tuned" to compensate for the manufacturing tolerances of a particular
drive (unscientific explanation).

Perce


On 09/09/05 03:25 am GHZpc tossed the following ingredients into the
ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

I accidently broke Pin #1 on my Maxtor hard drive. Unfortunately, I had very important data that was not backed up. Yes, I have already learned my lesson.

The pin broke off so deep that there is almost no metal visible to make contact with. I tried a safety pin and attempted to use my average soldering skills to solder a new pin in place. I have still had no luck up to this pont.

I think my best bet (besides buying a new hard drive), would be to remove the daughterboard on the outside of the hard drive and then have more access to where pin #1 is located. Does this sound like a safe thing to do? I would have to be aware of any small thin cables sticking out of the hard drive so that they do not get broke too.

If you have any other suggestions, they would be greatly greatly greatly appreciated. And please, please tell me that there is still hope. After all, it's only one pin. I refuse to believe that an entire hard drive can be useless just because one pin broke.