Damaged Hard drive

Hi,-

I recently damaged two pins on my 80g maxtor by incorrectly putting in the ribbin "common mistake i know>"
I was wondering, if its possible to get it fixed, one is pushed in and the other is bent.
It still works but is stuck in pio mode and the computer makes a sound like its shutting down. It tells me its a paging error, i know in the short run i'll have to get my files off their and on to my other one, which is also damaged "my luck, i get through no end of hard drives due to one reason or another."

I think my best bet i a usb2 external hard drive.

Also a similiar problem, my other 80g maxtor, will not be picked up by bios when it's restarted, i think its a result of being damaged physically, but i am not sure exactly.

Help is greatly appreciated, thanks
Regards, Adam C

You can try to pull the pin back out ... VERY GENTALLY...

The other you can straighten use precision set screw drivers :thumbs: ...don't bend it multiple times it'll break :flame:

I've done this many of times...not relizing that the IDE cable has a plugged hole

UPDATE BIOS

If both hard drives are the same, you can remove the controller board from both and swap them. This will allow you to get data off of them. Retrieve your data from the drives, and leave the controller on the drive that works. Copy it back on that drive.

hi, thanks for the replies.

In regards to the contoller i am not quite fimiliar with that.
I tried to make progress last night by taking a closer look at the pins.
They all seem okey now apart from two;-
* one seems slightly pushed in
* the other seems completely pushed, "bar a millimeter"

Also on my other hard drive the restarting issue has been resolved simply be removing the damaged hard drive, but its restricted to multiword dma 2
"i remember the days when i got ultra-dma 6."

I honestly dont think its got anything todo with the ribbin, or though its possible.
I did buy a new one recently, due to the last one being highly-bent.

done the same here, i took the controller board off, pulled the pins out and using a fine soldering iron i soldered the pins back on the cicuit board. It was fiddly but it worked. if i have to remove the drive, i take the ribbon from the motherboard and leave the cable in the hard drive end.