Physically stuck hard drive! Help!

[drumsloot]

So I bought a load of new components to build a mostly new PC, but I wanted to carry my HDD over.
However, I forgot that I had stripped the screw last time.
http://i.imgur.com/VYNupZf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4LsPPWN.jpg
I'm assuming it's going to be almost impossible to physically remove my HDD. Now that I've taken all the components out, is there an easy way to extract the more important data from my old HDD? In other words, is there a way to treat it like an external HDD? I only want to grab my most important files from it.

 

[bignastyid]

Assuming the drive is sata you can use a sata to usb adapter.

 

[ahnilated]

An easy out will remove that screw for you and they only cost a couple bucks.

 

[capt_taco]

I mean, the above would work, but a stripped screw is a silly reason to throw away a hard drive.

Probably worth trying a few tricks to get it out:

- Put some masking tape or duct tape over the screwdriver, sticky side facing the screw
- Put a wide rubber band between the screwdriver and screw head
- Use a screw remover bit
- Worst case, use a Dremel to cut through and then unscrew the stem with pliers

 

[damric]

Drill that screw out. This is a pretty easy fix.

 

[capt_taco]

(deleting double-post)

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Tech enthusiasts never seem to be handy with tools, do they... how did you manage to completely annihilate that screw head?

Anyway, take a Dremel and drill it out, that's one way to do it. A drill bit would probably be able to catch the head and pull it out too, or you could just completely drill it out that way. I'm assuming you have either a dremel or a small drill... if not, you should.

Easy-out makes a screw extractor that would work great for this.

I'm not sure I'd try this with a hard drive, but I've also found that with these screws being soft garbage, you can take a fairly sharp flat-head screwdriver that's just a tiny bit bigger than whatever hole you've stripped into the head of that screw, and use a hammer to tap it down in until you can catch enough of the head to turn it back out.

Buy yourself a pair of small needle nose vise-grips; you can clamp onto just about anything with them and twist it out that way.

There really isn't a 'right' way to pull out a stripped screw... just do whatever works, and use the right size of screwdriver carefully next time to keep this from happening. Hell, you even have the case all ripped up around that screw. Be gentle with these things.

 

[drumsloot]

Thank you for the wealth of responses. You guys are super helpful.
I'm VERY new to building PCs. This is the first time I've made one from scratch. The screw was stripped because it's a poor-quality, weak screw provided by a cheapo company on eBay, so it easily got wrecked.
I managed to resolve the problem by buying bent-nose pliers and just having a really good go at it. Got the hard drive out and now it's sat happily in my new case. Thanks everyone.