hi guys, please help me out with my SATA hard drive, i accidentally removed the case covering the pins on the hard drive and they are now exposed, am scared of forcing them back on the cover because they are so tiny and fragile. is it even possible to replace the cover for starters because the holes are so small and is my hard drive now bust??

Okay, so i got rid of that harddrive with the broken pins cause all the hardware repair shops said it cant be fixed, then i went and bought another harddrive, i setup Xp properly the first time around, then wanting to run Ubuntu Linux alongside Xp, tried installing Ubuntu but stopped the process midway coz it was taking too long, now XP doesn't want to run, i try setting it up again by formatting my drive and now it just keeps coming back to the setup window, it doesn't want to boot from the harddrive even if i change the boot order in the Bios, in setup , it is detected that the partition already contains another OS but i just cant seem to get out of setup, if i remove the CD, the computer reboots after the BIOS setup and just keeps doing that!!! put back the CD, it detects it, but not the HARD DRIVE!!!

Repairing this problem is probably gonna require re-partitioning the hard drive.
I've no experience with Linux so I can't help you there. You might leave a partition on the drive for a later install of Linux when you have more time for it.
Once the partition info is restated on the HD the XP install should work. XP is notoriously fussy about other OSs on the same system. The rule when XP came out to be installed on the older DOS/WIN9x systems is to leave the older install in place THEN do the XP install. Doesn't work too well the other way around, wish it did.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.