Warning on SATA drive connectors

[peter]

Flimsy little pieces of crap!!
I feel better already.
A couple of weeks ago while tidying inside my case I accidentally hit the
SATA connector on the HD and it broke off.I did not hit it hard,,,but I
guess hard enough.I managed to re-connect and run but I ordered another HD
and the new more secure connectors just in case.
When the HD came( minus the new connectors...on back order) I removed the HD
cage and installed the new drive thinking I would "ghost" everything
over.......well surprise surprise!!
No matter what I tried I could not get that original Sata HD connected.On my
A7N8X del ver2 .
The little plastic piece that was on the HD is stuck inside the Sata
connector!!
The pins are mostly intact on the drive they just wont hold a
connection........any ideas???
I just spend 2 days rebuilding everything......The backups did work but only
after I had XP installed and due to the fact that it was an upgrade edition
of XP I had to install ME first(backup copy which XP will not read ...I lost
the original years ago in a move)Me would not install on a SATA drive that I
had already formatted and partitioned....wouldn't even see the drive.I had
to install onto an EIDE drive ....So i thought why not set up a dual
boot?(just in case I break another connector)
Now that everything is back and up and running I thought I would just issue
a warning about those lousy flimsy connectors........and the newer more
secure ones are really not any better since you have to use a Molex power
connector not the Sata power connector with them.
Thanks for listening
peter

 

[Roy Coorne]

peter schrieb:
....

after I had XP installed and due to the fact that it was an upgrade edition
of XP I had to install ME first...

When installing XP from your upgrade edition CD, it should be
sufficient to insert the ME CD for a short while when prompted...

Roy

 

[Nero]

True indeed..............no need to install other version first not even if
the other version was an upgrade .
The home xp cd full or upgrade or oem has exactly the same files.

 

[peter]

Because it was a "burned" copy of the original ME CD XP did not read the
copy....or maybe it was because there is other stuff on the CD as
well....who knows.It has never read that CD properly and it will not let you
direct it to the proper directory where ME is located on the CD.
What no comments on the cheap broken connection???
peter

 

[warranty_NOT]

What no comments on the cheap broken connection???
peter

That single wire sure is sexy though, isn't it ?

Suckers

 

[wazza]

That single wire sure is sexy though, isn't it ?

Suckers

Maybe he should take more care?

 

[amuskratt]

OK. Why not use some epoxy to fix that connector. There's no damage to
the electronics or to the drive mechanism, am I right?

It may not be that hard to do. You may want to reinforce it even
further.

 

[peter]

Actually I am still trying to get the little plastic piece that broke off
the drive out of the connector on the cable.
I tried tweezers/needle nose pliers/very pointy knife...........none of it
worked.
any ideas out there??
peter

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Actually I am still trying to get the little plastic piece that broke off
the drive out of the connector on the cable.
I tried tweezers/needle nose pliers/very pointy knife...........none of it
worked.
any ideas out there??

You could try threading a small screw into the piece (like they do to
extract broken screws) if there is enough room. Failing that you could
try to heat a straightened paper clip enough to allow it to be pushed
into the plastic. When it is cooled down see if it will allow you to
pull out the piece. Otherwise you may have to break the plastic piece
up without damaging the connector.

 

[peter]

Thanks
I got the little plastic piece out of the connector now the problem is
hooking it back up to the HD long enough to get some info off
it..........remember that little piece originally was attached to the HD.
I tried holding it by hand...........no luck...........well short term luck
but I could not hold it that steady for long...got 1 file.
It looks like I damaged the pins on the HD some are extremely short.
I remember someone in here having an argument about wether SATA were "hot
pluggable" well I can definitly say yes to that.
I had the power plugged in but no data connector.....and I did manage to get
some data off it after plugging in the connector while power and computer
was on.
I am wondering if a very small set of 2way alligator clips would work by
attaching them pin by pin from HD to Cable??
peter

 

[Paul]

Thanks
I got the little plastic piece out of the connector now the problem is
hooking it back up to the HD long enough to get some info off
it..........remember that little piece originally was attached to the HD.
I tried holding it by hand...........no luck...........well short term luck
but I could not hold it that steady for long...got 1 file.
It looks like I damaged the pins on the HD some are extremely short.
I remember someone in here having an argument about wether SATA were "hot
pluggable" well I can definitly say yes to that.
I had the power plugged in but no data connector.....and I did manage to get
some data off it after plugging in the connector while power and computer
was on.
I am wondering if a very small set of 2way alligator clips would work by
attaching them pin by pin from HD to Cable??
peter

The signals are at 1.5Gbs. At speeds above a few MHz, you need
what is called a "transmission line" to carry the signals. The
characteristic impedance must be carefully controlled. An
alligator chip would represent a chunk of capacitive loading,
and would cause a giant reflection to any signals. The same is
true if you tried to solder short pieces of wire - even short
pieces of wire would be too much disturbance. In any case, since
the signals are transmitted differential, whatever disturbance
is present on one wire of the signal pair, must be present
on the other wire as well.

For this to work, you'll have to get the tiny wires to touch,
without messing with their immediate environment too much.

I see in a couple of connector pictures, that the connector
on the disk drive that you have broken, is a replaceable
part. Not easy to replace, but replaceable nonetheless.
A connector could be scavenged from another dead SATA drive,
and maybe someone at a repair shop could unsolder and resolder
a replacement for you.

I tried to locate a replacement connector at Digikey, Mouser,
Newark, and none of them have exactly the right item. Since
these connectors are used in large quantities, only by disk
manufacturers, there isn't a good reason for these to be
available at retail.

The comaxtech one looks like it would slide into place
easily, while the FCI connector has push pins.

http://www.comaxtech.com/Architecture/CD011E31A.pdf
http://ecatalog.fciconnect.com/FCI/saqqara/PDF/10031569.pdf

Professional data recovery firms, would replace the whole
controller board, until all the data had been extracted.
I have no idea how hard it is to change controller boards -
the disks I've looked at, have a flex cable to the HDA, and
I have no idea how that is connected underneath.

In any case, this is probably not fixable on the kitchen
table. Unless, of course, there is enough of the connector
remaining on the disk drive, to contact the cable somehow.

Good luck,
Paul

 

[peter]

Thanks Paul
You went to a lot of trouble to look for and post these drawings.I guess the
Alligator clips are out.
Out of the 7 connectors 2 are a little on the short side.I looked at the
drawings and at my drive and it seems like the connectors are fused right
into the plastic with 3 tiny little pins holding the plastice to the
controller board.One on each side and one in the middle.To me it seems it
was assembled as part of the controller board and then the board installed
onto the drive.And you're right I am not about to take the board off the
drive unless I have exhausted all other fix myself possibilities.
If they were not fused I would try to cut/grind some of the plastice off to
give the cable more depth....but I might just damage it more.
I will just keep trying every once in awhile in the off chance that i might
get lucky one day.....
thanks again
peter