Harddrive - ide pins have problems!

OK, friend of mine has broken ide pins, some have bent, some have snapped off, and some have been pushed back into the drive itself so it can't be connected to and there's loads of data on the drive.
What would you guys say is the best way to fix this, send it off to the manufacturer, Hitachi, or what?

 

depends how the damage was done IMHO,I'm having a tricky time understanding how he managed to bend,pull out and push in the pins all at the same time,the disk could have been damaged internally,I dont think the company will fix the drive,just send you a new one especially if the heads are damaged,a data recovery company would be best and they cost heaps.

unless it has all the playboy centerfolds since the beginning of time I'd dump it Did he explain what happenned to it? Im intrigued

 

I'm getting him to signup here lol
I think he just plugged in the cable and it just broke!

I quote him now -

 

I understand shes in the room next to you ,I think data recovery is your best bet,doing it yourself could make things worse if the "prom " pictures are important,hopefully it aint taken a knock and the platters and heads are fine it may not cost that much at all.

 

I've seen a machine where to computer would not boot. From quick casual glance it appears that all cables were plugged in correctly.

On closer inspection, I saw that the floppy cable was forced into the PATA (IDE hdd) connector. Luckily, there were no broken or pushed in pins, just bent pins.



For your situation, there may be a solution. If you have another drive that is identical, you should be able to unscrew off the circuit board. Then put the good one on the other drive, transfer your data, then put the good one back on the other.

This by no means reveals the actual platters on the hdd, so a clean room should not be necessary.

BTW, I just now tried this on an old hitachi hdd, it seems to work fine.

 

Absolutely. I have an online friend from another bb who has done this
many times.
One other thing though. If there is even a little bit of pin left
at each point, you would be surprised at how well you can straighten
them up with fine tip needle nose pliers.