Hard Disk IDE Bent Pins

[Ascii2]

I have a hard disk with bent pins on its IDE controller due to a defective IDE cable.

I tried to use a new IDE cable (pcToys brand) to connect a few devices. The IDE connector on the cable broke and bent the four pins on the left in the hard disk IDE controller.

Four pins are now curved (curves are a little bit less than a half-circle) and the hard disk IDE controller will not accept an IDE cable connector.

How do I unbend or straighten pins?

[Drinkyoghurt]

take a pincet or whatever small thing and try to bend them back, you could also try using a mechanical pencil

[Ascii2]

take a pincet...What is a pincert?

[nvidiaOCmaster]

Try a knife, thats how I do it.

[Snugglebear]

Needle-nose pliers are usually the best. Drive pins are typically a lot harder to bend than CPU pins. Using a knife will require enough force to cause slippage, and that in turn can cause more damage to things. Pliers, on the other hand, can be used to grasp the pin from two sides, and, if you have decent hand strength, you can squeeze the pin straight on one axis. Do this twice and you're back in business. Having pliers around also works well if you have a pin get pushed in due to a bad cable or clumsy installation.

[Ascii2]

The problem has been resolved.

Thanks to all who participated in this thread.

Resolution: I resolved the bent pins problem with a jumper, needle-nose pliers, a non-defective IDE cable. I first tried applying a jumper to bent pins, two at a time. With the needle-nose (jumper sometimes was raised a bit) I modified the position of the jumper (and also the pins or parts of the pins under the junper). Once the pins seemed sufficiently straight, I used an IDE connector from a non-defective IDE cable to finish the job (or perhaps close enough).