Harddrive repair

[philo]

last night
i replaced the main drive on a friend's machine
and preformed a clean install of XP.

to be on the safe side i disconnected the auxiliary drives
and hooked them back up after the installtion was complete...
unfortunately the machine did not detect one of the auxiliary drives!

i removed it from the machine and inspected the electronics carefully with a
magnifying glass and discovered that one end of a smt capacitor was no
longer
soldered to the board...it was raised slightly!

after very carfully resoldering it with my "pencil" soldering iron...
to my amazement the thing worked...(though i don't know how well i soldered
it)

although i plan to replace the drive with a new one...
i'm wondering if i might have bumped the drive...even though nothing
was mounted near it...
what are the chances that it could have been a poor solder joint from the
factory?

i always take a lot of care when i work on machines...
i can't see how i could have bumped it ...but it sure looks like i must
have.

what i'd like to do is find some type of soldering iron specifically
designed
for soldering smt's so i can use the drive as a spare...

has any one else ever managed to 'repair' a harddrive?

 

[Chris]

last night
i replaced the main drive on a friend's machine
and preformed a clean install of XP.

to be on the safe side i disconnected the auxiliary drives
and hooked them back up after the installtion was complete...
unfortunately the machine did not detect one of the auxiliary drives!

i removed it from the machine and inspected the electronics carefully with
a
magnifying glass and discovered that one end of a smt capacitor was no
longer
soldered to the board...it was raised slightly!

after very carfully resoldering it with my "pencil" soldering iron...
to my amazement the thing worked...(though i don't know how well i
soldered it)

although i plan to replace the drive with a new one...
i'm wondering if i might have bumped the drive...even though nothing
was mounted near it...
what are the chances that it could have been a poor solder joint from the
factory?

i always take a lot of care when i work on machines...
i can't see how i could have bumped it ...but it sure looks like i must
have.

what i'd like to do is find some type of soldering iron specifically
designed
for soldering smt's so i can use the drive as a spare...

has any one else ever managed to 'repair' a harddrive?

Yes we have repaired many, we use Weller WS81 temperature controlled pencil
irons and (LMP) Low Melting Point solder so nothing else is disturbed by
the heat.














--
Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
(e-mail address removed)

 

[philo]

Yes we have repaired many, we use Weller WS81 temperature controlled
pencil irons and (LMP) Low Melting Point solder so nothing else is
disturbed by the heat.

thanks for the info...
i used repair circuit boards...but that was 20 years ago...
so even though i have worked on a few smt's...they were either
a big bigger back then or mybe just my eyes were better!
anyway...i was sure nervous working on that thing...
but figure that if i can get a good solder joint...
then (at least for my own use) i can keep using that drive around the shop