Computer/Hard Drive Repair

Shooter · Post by **Shooter** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:53 am

Blast is all I say!! Now that that's out of the way . . . does anyone know where I can get a hard drive repaired? It seems the connector has fallen out of my hard drive making it impossible to connect my USB cable to it or to my computer. Having valuable things such as photos and the rest of my life on the Hard Drive, my first thought was to try masking tape. This did not work so I thought maybe super glue . . . I did not try this but I thought about it. My next thought was to hit it with a hammer and then poke my eyes out but I thought that might make too much of a mess and without my eyes it might be hard to clean up. So here I am on the forum pleading for any suggestions as to where I might be able to take this stupid pile of @8#* to be repaired or at least have the information extracted. Does anyone out there know of such a place in Helsinki as well as what the cost of such a service might be? Thanks all!

Shooter

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Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:57 am

Shooter wrote:Blast is all I say!! Now that that's out of the way . . . does anyone know where I can get a hard drive repaired? It seems the connector has fallen out of my hard drive making it impossible to connect my USB cable to it or to my computer.

So it’s in an external USB case? Remove the HDD from that case and plug it directly to your PC as an internal drive, skipping the USB part altogether. (The drives inside external USB enclosures are ordinary internal HDDs with a SATA or PATA connector.)

Of course if you don’t have a “real” computer but just a laptop this may not be possible and you need to find someone with a desktop PC instead.

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:43 pm

Jukka Aho wrote: Of course if you don’t have a “real” computer but just a laptop this may not be possible and you need to find someone with a desktop PC instead.

Also one could consider buying new enclosure: for example http://www.verkkokauppa.com/popups/prod ... p?id=18222

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:53 pm

Upphew wrote:Also one could consider buying new enclosure: for example http://www.verkkokauppa.com/popups/prod ... p?id=18222

That’s a good idea too but you need to ensure the enclosure and the drive have the same type of connector (PATA vs SATA).

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:21 am

Shooter wrote:does anyone know where I can get a hard drive repaired?

there's not much point since a new enclosure will cost 10-20 euro and the minimum charge even for something simple is going to be 40-50e. and real repairs to a hard disk can easily be many times the new price of a disk but there are places that do it since the data is normally worth much more than the price of the disk.

umit · Post by **umit** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:53 am

Try to find a friend who has above average knowledge about computers and hardware. Take out your hard disk from its case. Your friend can connect the naked hard disk to his (I said "his" cos have never seen a "her" doing this kind of things) desktop as a secondary (slave) hard disk. Then you can recover your files and buy a new external hard disk. Copy-Paste that's it... Of course if you have some "private" things in it you may not like to use this option

bullacc · Post by **bullacc** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:04 pm

You'll need to provide more details - either better describe the problem, or even take a photo of the damage.

In most cases, there are easy solutions that you can do yourself - in other cases (where the hard-drive isn't actually fubar), i can repair the drive, or at least recover the data from it.

Anyway, feel free to post more info here, or contact me in private if you prefer.

olesya · Post by **olesya** » Fri May 29, 2009 9:56 am

When I connect a SATA device (hard disk and dvd drive) power supply cuts off. HELP? On 3 occasions, the device shorted and burnt inside the cabinet. Power supply resumes when a IDE device is connected. This has happened on different motherboards - ASUS, FOXCONN, AMD- with an SMPS of 440 w. What to do?

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Fri May 29, 2009 8:33 pm

olesya wrote:When I connect a SATA device (hard disk and dvd drive) power supply cuts off. HELP? On 3 occasions, the device shorted and burnt inside the cabinet. Power supply resumes when a IDE device is connected. This has happened on different motherboards - ASUS, FOXCONN, AMD- with an SMPS of 440 w. What to do?

It tells you that SATA and PATA have different power requirements..

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Fri May 29, 2009 8:37 pm

Upphew wrote:
Jukka Aho wrote: Of course if you don’t have a “real” computer but just a laptop this may not be possible and you need to find someone with a desktop PC instead.
Also one could consider buying new enclosure: for example http://www.verkkokauppa.com/popups/prod ... p?id=18222

They sell this cable ( I got it at Sello at that mania store ).. called " USB to SATA/IDE adapter kit), you can connect that cable after taking the hard drive and the other end to any other computer which then treats it as another drive and you can extract all your data back.
Other option is to get a bigger enclosure kit where you put the original drive and enable booting from that drive provided you have a USB connection to the motherboard ( or the laptop)..
The kit is made be Deltaco.
This is how you can "upgrade" your HD to a bigger one in the laptop. as it also comes with SW to do the data migration!!

bullacc · Post by **bullacc** » Sat May 30, 2009 2:44 am

olesya wrote:When I connect a SATA device (hard disk and dvd drive) power supply cuts off. HELP? On 3 occasions, the device shorted and burnt inside the cabinet. Power supply resumes when a IDE device is connected. This has happened on different motherboards - ASUS, FOXCONN, AMD- with an SMPS of 440 w. What to do?

The problem is the PSU (Power Supply Unit).
It doesn't have enough "juice" to power everything you connect.

Most default systems come with a PSU that just enough covers the needs of the system (processor, hard disk, graphic card).

The only solution is to get a better PSU - at least 600W, maybe even a 800 or 1000W just to be safe (if you get a "green" labeled one, it wont use that much power except when you need it).

maxxfi · Post by **maxxfi** » Sat May 30, 2009 8:00 pm

bullacc wrote: The only solution is to get a better PSU - at least 600W, maybe even a 800 or 1000W just to be safe (if you get a "green" labeled one, it wont use that much power except when you need it).

Any PSU won't use the full rating power unless the computer would use it. The 'green' type has just a better conversion efficiency from the 220V to the low voltages that the computer needs and so it will heat a bit less.
But 1000W PSU?

Yikes! Who needs a heater anymore...

bullacc · Post by **bullacc** » Sat May 30, 2009 8:11 pm

maxxfi wrote:Any PSU won't use the full rating power unless the computer would use it. The 'green' type has just a better conversion efficiency from the 220V to the low voltages that the computer needs and so it will heat a bit less.

Yeah, that was it, got the "green" stuff confused with the HDD ones.

maxxfi wrote:But 1000W PSU? Yikes! Who needs a heater anymore...

To be honest, it doesn't give out that much heat - whatever that thing's powering usually gives out more heat.
One reason why my system needs about 3 chassis coolers along with the individual coolers in the PSU, GPU, and CPU, to keep everything at a normal temperature.

susanpret88 · Post by **susanpret88** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:59 am

Thanks everyone for your support, you're the best!!

pret auto

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