Hardware fiddling dangers

I went home over Christmas, and of course wanted to have my PC with me then. I took out my CD-ROM for the transport of my PC in the airplane (because I can use an old CD-ROM here) and also wanted to take the harddisks into the handluggage. First, I could only take on harddisk out before making it ready for transfer, so I could have left all HDs where they were (I will do that next time).

Second, after the transport, all data cables were lose, and the case for the harddisks was pretty much deformed, so I had to get it more or less straight again.

The main problem was then getting all the cables back in. Ouch. The other two cables out of three (floppy, CD, HDs) were always in front of the one I wanted to plug in (I know this does not work in a three dimensional space, but the cables did not care). I could only use my fingertips for doing that anyway (lots of cards and other stuff taking away all the space).

During some unsuccessful attempt to plug in the floppy cable (I managed to get the rest working), I accidentally plugged it in wrongly, shifted by one pin to the side, jerking the rightmost column of pins aside. Of course the pins (on the motherboard!) were so badly deformed that I could no longer plug the cable in. I knew that I had to change my strategy now.

I took all the stuff from the HD case (HDs and floppy) out, unplugged all the HD, floppy and CD cables for being able to actually see the floppy pins fully for the first time. Using a pen, I pressed them back into their old place, which, after many tries, finally worked (I almost thought about getting the computer repaired, which easily costs $100 or more here because they test everything afterwards and of course charge for that time).

You may have tested your computer before without the case on (nothing uncommon), but have you ever tested it with you HDs and floppy in a vertical position, put on the floor? This was what I did when it finally worked.

I then assembled everything, but the sight was horrid. I managed to get spaghetti code in hardware. All cables were a huge mess, and since I will have to take out the CD-ROM again before going back, this had to change. So I had to unplug all cables again and start over. Oh well. The rest was easy. I have sore fingers now (from repairing and typing), but let this story be a reminder: only maneuver your cables around with your fingertips when you can see the plug :)

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