Hello everyone.
Power was coming on and off our building so my friend decided to remove the secondary hard disk.
When I came home, and tried to plug in the secondary hard disk, there was a low bleeping sound, then it stopped right after being told to press f1 or f2.
after pressing f1, there was another error, that i check the cable media.
I checked and i found out that three pins(on the hdd) were missing one where the master jumper is placed and two from where the ide is inserted.
I managed to solder them hoping that it will work, but the problem still persists.
the hdd was working very well before. Could someone please tell me what to do as the hdd contains all my info.
Any help will be greately appreciated
Regards
Clement

How in the world did you manage to break off those pins? I would have to work at that to accomplish that.

If it was just the jumper pins I would say to open it up and solder the configuration permanently, but I have no idea how you are going to replace those IDE pins.

Hello dcc,
I soldered those pins alright but the problem is still there, I also dug deep into goolge and came up with several ideas that I will try, but yesterday, there was no bleeping sound but the message below was displayed
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE
Strike F1 to continue or F2 to enter setup

I changed all the cables, plus i interchanged the pins, but to no avail, am yet to try a boot disk, ooh I changed the BIOS too,
Could the HDD have crashed, it had XP '06 OS and all my docs.

That doesn't sound good, I wish you luck.

I would still like to know how you managed to pull those pins loose, those pins a soldered to the pc board.

Hi dcc,
Well I removed the board from the hdd, you know, like removing the screws from the board and having two pieces... anyway, i removed the board and using a soldering iron and a sucker(these are electronic gadgets i normally have in the house, for small repairs), i removed the broken pins, and resoldered new pins by removing some pins from an old hdd. easy eh!

I yesterday i performed the fdisk thing, and at some point i was told that the hdd can't be detected, so i guess my hdd is fried, WITH ALL MY STUFF.
Good day

Did you examine the traces to make sure that they hadn't broken when the pins were pulled out? It might be worth taking an Ohm meter and check the continuity between the pins and the traces. If it's not that you probably have gone about as far as you are going to. Also check for cold solder joints.

Did you try a different IDE cable?

For the record, your a person after my own heart to pursue a repair to this extent. I have a lot of experience with soldering and replacing board components and have given up suggesting to novices that they attempt that type of repair. More power to you.

Hi Dcc,

I had checked for continuity(continous bleeping sound?), though I used a digital multemeter, so I know the pins are OK.
I will tell you on monday if I manage to resque some data, because I googled and over the weekend I will stry some of the suggestions.
Thanks for the power, I just can't give up, the hdd has tons of personal and client's stuff. If you happen to come across any news that can alleviate this headache, please do communicate.
Have a great weekend.