Broken SATA connectors & HDD imaging.

BoomAM

BoomAM

BoomAM

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2003
Posts
16,206
Location
Atlanta, USA
Hi.
Im after some emergency help.
I was installing some new HDDs into my computer and i accidently knocked the SATA cable on my windows drive, breaking the connnector on the drive itself. :eek:
With some playing around, some blue tack, and some card, i can get the drive to recognise on boot. And probably completely boot if i tryed (i shut the computer down after the BIOS recongised the drive).
What im wondering is, is there a way i can image the 80Gb drive, everything, onto a blank 250Gb drive, and have windows/whatever none the wiser?

+any tips for keeping the connector secure on the drive while its doing its thing.

Any help would be very much appriciated. :)

##EDIT##
Ive tryed booting beyond the BIOS, and it wont work. Keeps saying disk boot failure. I take it that that means that the drives compltely knackered?
 
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BoomAM said:
Ive tryed booting beyond the BIOS, and it wont work. Keeps saying disk boot failure. I take it that that means that the drives compltely knackered?
Click to expand...

Sounds like there's more damage to the PCB beyond the data connector. There is a chance that the data could be recovered by replacing the PCB with one from an absolutely identical HDD.
 
rpstewart said:
Sounds like there's more damage to the PCB beyond the data connector. There is a chance that the data could be recovered by replacing the PCB with one from an absolutely identical HDD.
Click to expand...
How could the PCB get knackered if the drive connector got broken off while the computer was off? :confused:.

Im just trying to boot into a linux drive CD now, to see if linux can see the HDD. Because if it can, i should be alright just re-writing the MBR.

##EDIT##
Fedora recognises the drive and sees the NTFS partiton! So im trying UbuntuLTS now, and im gonna see if i can resize the NTFS partition, to allow 20Gb free, and then install Ubuntu there. Which will hopefully re-write my MBR. If not, im hoping that i can at least access the NTFS drive and get my stuff off it! :p
 
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Odd.
Ive just put the XP cd into my drive to use recovery console to fix the MBR, and rarther than booting to the CD, its booted into windows? As if nothing has happened?
 
BoomAM said:
How could the PCB get knackered if the drive connector got broken off while the computer was off? :confused:.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that the physical damage may extend further onto the PCB than just the connector or that your repair isn't holding well enough to allow data transfer.
 
Well at the moment, its booted succesfully, twice, to the damaged drive. But its operating without NCQ and is running at 150 accoring to windows, rarther than NCQ w/300.
Norton Ghost is just copying the drive to a 250Gb drive i bought today. Hopefully it'll work fine. Hopefully. Although knowing my luck it probably wont. :(
What a laugh. I was hoping to end the day with 830Gb to play with. (Got 2x250Gb drives this morning). Instead, im gonna have to struggle with 750Gb. So an increase in room of 170Gb. :p
On the bright side, in theory, it hasnt cost me much. IF it works. :p
 
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