cf-29 hard drive caddies failing

So I have about 20 caddies that I have been through that all failed to detect the hard drive. Is this a common thing or am I doing something wrong? the hard drives were good because i just keep going through the caddies and eventually one would work. If this is a common thing where is the failing point on these things?

Dan

 

Might be the internal IDE connector as well? I have a CF-29 like that too, just waiting for a part to pop up so I can buy it to try.

 

see i thought that too but I can get other caddies to work in the same computer with the same hard drive, and I pass the "bad" caddies to other computers and it won't work either, even on ones i've already set up and such. So I'm pretty sure it's the caddy connector but this is a very high failure rate and it's just shocking.

Kinda like the high failure rate of the touchscreens on these units where I have about a 1 to 5 ratio. And these things aren't easy to sell without touchscreens.

Dan

 

Dan -

I'd guess that the failure has to do with the fact that you actually HAVE the caddies; typically, when government offices or businesses decommission these, they just yank caddy and all, leaving a big hole in your Toughbook.

Now think about the mindset of the IT grunts assigned to decommission 50 or 200 of these by whatever deadline, and knowing what a pain in the arse those caddies are to pull apart. I GUARANTEE that by unit 30 they're just ripping them apart as quick as they can, and who gives a Rat's arse about whether they damage that fragile ribbon cable or not.

I suspect that if you inspect those cables carefully you'll find tiny rips where the ribbon turns at right angles or traces damaged at either connector end.

As for the Touchscreen faults... well, you may be the victim of another common practice of most large IT departments; that of cannibalizing part of your inventory to get another X amount of life out of the best of the lot, then reassembling the broken units to sell at a loss so they can be written off to improve the bottom line at the end of the quarter.

mnem<~~~Bearer of Bad News~~~*

 

I completely understand what you're saying about the caddies and that prolly is the case, unfortunately.

Although I am being reassured by the manager of the IT company that sold us these decomissioned units that this is how they received and I would imagine he wouldn't screw over his own brother, but then again I've met some pretty sick people. I'm not losing anymore sleep over the touchscreens because i'm just selling them AS-IS and letting the buyer know what does and doesn't work

 

Dan... Yeah... Look for torn ribbon cables and/or bent or missing pins on the end of the HD connector.

As far as the Touchscreen goes... I am still convinced that something was done to make sure that the touchscreen would not function. These were all units that were set up more securely than I have ever seen. Bolted closed battery compartments, secured HD latches, secured hinges... The works. The only thing that wasn't secured was what actually needed to be used.

 

Well the computer was on complete lock down other than the lid. On the few that had the operating system on them. (big no no) they had some crazy encryptions on them. and BIOS was locked down too. surprised there wasn't some sort of alarm on it just in case you got past the hard drive and battery locks

 

Definetely leaning toward bent pins though, didn't see any tears, those pins are just so damn hard to see. Some person that can't keep their hands to theirselves broke my magnifying glass......