Little help folks?

Aloreth · 6 Sep 2010 at 17:18

Ok heres the problem.

I have a SATA hdd, the little black piece of plastic that holds the sata cable in place has snapped off leaving the 7 metal prongs coming out of the disk. I would like to get the data off the disk and copy it onto a spare. What is going to be the easiest way to do this? I don't know where the little piece of plastic is and if i simple slide the cable onto the pins, the PC doesnt detect it in the BIOS (I suspect the piece of plastic acts as something to hold the pins against the SATA cable).

Ideas? Suggestions? Any comments would be appreciated.
Mike

stulid · 6 Sep 2010 at 17:38

lets have a pic to make sure what we are discussing

Aloreth · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:07

Hi Stulid,
Thanks for taking an interest! Here is the hdd

Vengance · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:10

fold some paper to the same thickness as the missing plastic bit and use it to keep the contact with the cable plugged in.

4T5 · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:17

A Lolly stick is what you need.

stulid · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:17

yeah, but shove it into the actual cable end, this should provide enough pressure against those broken fingers, to the bits inside the cable end.

zooankski · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:22

Once you have done the paper thing under the fingers , i would glue the SATA lead in place and jus unplug board end if needed.

RJC · 11 Sep 2010 at 09:24

Weather this will help at all. do you a old sata cable chop the end of and see if can wrap the cables around the terminals.

Aloreth · 11 Sep 2010 at 12:57

stulid said:
yeah, but shove it into the actual cable end, this should provide enough pressure against those broken fingers, to the bits inside the cable end.

As always stulid you have come up with the goods. I tried cutting up a train ticket and wedging it into the space on the hdd where the plastic thing snapped off from. Impossible! I tried wedging same ticket into the end of the sata cable and even as we speak 750 gig of stuff is being copied off of the old disk and onto the new

Might try and glue it on and continue to use the disk - might use it as a steam drive as the worst that happens is that I have to redownload my games.