Broken USB pin on back of external HD

B

Billy305

Geek Trainee
Hello all. I am having a problem with my hard drive and came across the forum hoping someone may be able to help me. I bought a Western Digital 1TB hard drive last month. Yesterday I went to move my system and when I went to plug the usb cord in to the back of the hard drive (picture included) there are 3 pins that are centered in the middle of the socket. I did not force the plug or press hard but one of the pins got extremely bent. I tried to re position it but almost as soon as I touched it, it fell off. I am looking for a way to repair this or at least be able to get the data off of it. I already sent an email to WD asking their advice but their website says the do not offer or recommend repairs. The hard drive other wise is in 100% technical condition, its just this one small missing connection that make it not work. Is that female socket shown in the picture replaceable/fixable?

I do not want to open the case as it will completely void my warranty. It would suck but I could deal with losing the 140 I bought the drive for, but I have over 30 gigs of pictures I have taken in the last 8 years or so that it would kill me to lose. If western digital does not offer to fix the problem, being able to save all the data, what do you all recommend I do?

By the way, if I get this all sorted out I am going to be buying another internal HDD and backing all of my pictures up to DVD's and putting them in my filing cabinent.

Thank you in advance for any responses.

brokenusb.jpg
 
Under further examination it seems like the center of the hard drive side has come off in to the socket of the cord.... I dont know how it got stuck or I pulled it off but I guess the fix would be the same regardless.
 
The only fix I can think of is to open it up and swap the usb socket over with a new one. I know it would void the warranty but the warranty is useless if they wont fix the drive for you.

Swapping bits over on pcbs can be quite fiddley but with someone to hold things in place for you while you solder its easily possible.

You never know. You might even be able to replace the usb part without desoldering the old part...... its hard to say exactly what you will need to do without opening it up and having a good look inside.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=usb&source=15&menu=-2
 
zeus said:
The only fix I can think of is to open it up and swap the usb socket over with a new one. I know it would void the warranty but the warranty is useless if they wont fix the drive for you.

Swapping bits over on pcbs can be quite fiddley but with someone to hold things in place for you while you solder its easily possible.

You never know. You might even be able to replace the usb part without desoldering the old part...... its hard to say exactly what you will need to do without opening it up and having a good look inside.

Maplin > usb
Click to expand...
In that case you could consider buying an external hard disk enclosure, and putting the hard disk into the new enclosure.
If you want to solder a new USB plug, you'll need some experience in the field of soldering because the distance between the connectors is very small. You really need to master the soldering iron.
 
Are these external hdd just a standard sata or ata drive with a usb converter on then? I kind of expected them to be directly wired into a pcb with a usb socket on.

When things like this happen to drives its usually easy enough to put a whole new pcb on the drive but given this 1tb drive cost $140 (absolute bargain imo!!) it wuold mean buying a second 1tb drive to use for spare parts. Even a faulty one on ebay would cost a bit.

The connectors are close but as long as you reuse the existing solder and use a small soldering iron its doable.
 
zeus said:
Are these external hdd just a standard sata or ata drive with a usb converter on then? I kind of expected them to be directly wired into a pcb with a usb socket on.

When things like this happen to drives its usually easy enough to put a whole new pcb on the drive but given this 1tb drive cost $140 (absolute bargain imo!!) it wuold mean buying a second 1tb drive to use for spare parts. Even a faulty one on ebay would cost a bit.

The connectors are close but as long as you reuse the existing solder and use a small soldering iron its doable.
Click to expand...

It's indeed an SATA > USB converter pcb. But i'm not sure if all pcbs are the same, or modified to fit into the enclosure...
 
Thank you for the responses so far. I would hate to have to buy another drive for parts but if I really had to I would. Is there somewhere that sells those sockets. And if I solder where do you suggest I make the contacts. I probably will not be using this drive after I am able to get the data off of it.
 
yes the part your soldering may be small & close together, but soldering isn't that hard to do, just practice on an old circuit board first, you'll soon see how easy it is

Tip: use a soldering iron with a small tip

Tip2: use solder with intergrated flux, utherwise it's difficult to make the solder stick

Tip3: invest in a solder sucker to aid you in removing old solder

Edit:
Zeus said:
The connectors are close but as long as you reuse the existing solder and use a small soldering iron its doable.
Click to expand...
yes it may do doable by an expirenced solderer, but by not using flux you increase the risc of creating a dry joint (bad eletrical connection)
 
I went to tiger direct this morning (5 minutes from my house) and explained the situation to them. They said they are very confident they could take apart the casing and retrieve the data. They said that if I brought them another hard drive to put the data on they would charge me $70 dollars to get the data off and put it on the other one. Considering my soldering skills are sub par and I do not want to mess it up I think I am going to go this route. Basically I will be down another $170 dollars ($100 for another hard drive, internal SATA this time, and 70 for the service.) and will only have one working drive, but I guess its going to be worth it not to lose this information I want. maybe I will be able to sell the external hard drive to someone a little more experienced when its done and they can get a good deal and fix it. I guess ill just learn from this experience and not buy the same type of hard drive again. By the way it was a Western Digital My book 1tb external.
 
Id happily pay double what your paying to save my images. The thought of losing pics is horrible.

See if they will give you your wd 1tb drive back..... you might be able to use it as an internal drive.
 
That is another thing I am wondering about. They have to give me the TB drive back because im not returning it or anything, I'm just paying them basically for a transfer service. I have never seen the inside of a external hard drive, (not a internal installed in an external case.) Will I actually be able to use it as an internal hard drive? Is it a normal sata hard drive inside of a case that just has a usb connection and a power source that plugs into a wall instead of the power supply? If that was the case I would just rip the casing apart and do that right now.
 
The WD MyBook series all contain a regular 3.5" hard disk. You can indeed connect the drive to your computer, as long as your motherboard has SATA.
 
This is great news for me then! My evga 680i has 6 sata connections and Im already running vista on an internal 300 gig sata HD. So all I need to do is open up the case and I'll have a drive similar to my other one just 1tb? Again this is great news if so and thank you everyone for helping me out.
 
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