Hi!
I accidentally broke a pin on a hard drive data conector, where you connect an IDE cable, between the motherboard and the hard drive!
On that hard drive i had data that i consider valuable. That data took me too much time and work!
I already bought a new hard drive. I intend to tranfer that data from the old hard drive, to the new one. However i am afraid the data becomes corrupted, because of that missing pin!
The computer boots from that broken pin hard drive, and apears to be working fine. However, once more, i am afraid of data corruption.
Is there anyone, that understands paralel ATA hard drive technology enouph, to answer the following question:
Does a missing pin in a hard drive PATA data connector cause data corruption, when the data is tranfered between that interface?
Help please!
Thanks in advance!

Well, if it's still working, I suggest you clone everything from the old HD to the new HD right away. Norton Ghost works well. If you knocked out a ground pin, there shouldn't be a data corruption problem.

How can i make sure that it is a graund pin?

Yo-

If it still reads and writes - back it up - I would use Acronis "True Image" (it's bullet proof and said to be far superior to Norton Ghost) and will give you a perfect clone - just be sure to back up to a second or external drive and then back onto the new one-

Mike

http://www.bbdsoft.com/ide.html

And you believe drinking redbull gives you wings?

Based on that, i guess it is the Reset IDE Pin that is missing! That was determined taking pin number 20 as a reference, as it must be done. I guess that it will not cause loss of data, since it is not a data pin, the one that misses!
Now i am curious. What are the effects of a missing Reset pin (pin number 1), on the hard drive funcionality? And what if it was a ground pin?
As i do intend to use that hard drive in another system, if it is safe!
Thank you for your valuable help!

"... the Reset IDE pin, which is what's used to soft-reset the drive. Soft-resetting isn't often needed. By default, it happens when you reset the PC, and it can cure a drive that's been left in an insane state by a bad driver or some similar mishap, but a drive that isn't currently nuts will work fine if you reset the computer without resetting the drive as well. You can always reset your drives, whether or not they've got a pin 1, by turning the computer off and back on."


Reference:
http://www.dansdata.com/io024.htm

@Stoner
Wow, useful link dude... and yes redbull does give you wings

Just realized, make sure you have it correctly, and aren't reading the pin layout's upside down, and this is a 40pin not a SCSI right...

40-pin, shrouded berg strip.



Reference:
http://inf33-www.informatik.unibw-mu...eprmb/1290.htm

Thank you!
Those answers will leave me better!
I am sure it is pin 1 the one that is missing. And, yes, it is a 40 pin IDE male connector.
I will use that drive on another system. And i am thinking in a way of putting the missing pin back to its place.
If there is not a problem of data loss, better!
By the way, the data i had on that drive is safely backed up now.

Been there, done that. It's quite easy actually.. just replace the missing pin by someting similar. I used a thick needle and that worked quite allright for me. You'd better have some skills with an soldering iron though....

Hey guys, I recently broke a pin on my hard drive also and my problem is that windows dont even detect the hard drive no more not even in dos...........and i also have a lot of files that mean a lot to me and also important files, help me out guys, is there still hope for me to get back my files???

please start a new thread next time , anyway your best bet is to get an identical hard drive (same model & firmware and date of manufacturing close as possible to the current) then replace the hd pcb board (that green board with various chips and the ide/power connectors) if all goes well the drive will be recognized and youll have all your data back if it will fail then next thing to do if your data is truly important to you is to use professional data recovery service , anyway be gentle with it next time and it wont happen again

if pcb board replacing will fail i recommend these data recovery companies
http://www.cbltech.com/data-recovery.html
http://www.ontrack.com/datarecovery/servicequote.asp

I lost 2 pins on a old IBM drive and after I resoldered one back in it wouldn't read back anything. it spins, and makes trying to seek noises and thats about it now. I don't know if maybe I zapped it trying to resolder the first one back in or it got zapped when it possibly shorted while trying to fall out. Definitely back up the data now before doing anything as I figured simply redoing the loose pins shouldn't hurt anything and now I can get nothing outa the drive. Luckily it was my oldest one still in service and most of the data was old stuff that wasn't critical, but I did have some older versions of things in a downlaod directory and like that I wish I coulda saved.