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Time Capsule - bodged repair job :(

J

jowie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 9, 2004
573
8
London ish
Hi all,

You may have been following my other thread about a replacement hard drive for the Time Capsule? Anyway, I finally bought a Samsung EcoGreen 1TB drive as a replacement, and set about replacing it using this website for instructions.

Unfortunately, I got as far as removing the last screw on the base, but it just wouldn't budge. It got to the point that I tried so many different screwdrivers, I've just ended up with a totally burred screw:

qn5cHaA


I tried bending the casing back slightly to see if it would just snap off, but it's connected to a rather thin metal bracket underneath so I think it'll just bend it, or worse break something inside.

Does anyone know what I can do to get around this problem? I was considering going down the hardware shop to see if I can buy a small drill or one of those motorized screwdriver/drills, and possibly drill through the screw until it snaps. Is this a good idea? Any other thoughts?

Your advice gratefully appreciated... I'm rather frustrated as you can imagine! :(

Thanks!

:-Joe
 
If the screw is small, there may be little you can do short of trying to drill out the screw's head.

There are screw removing drill bits bit not for tiny screws.
 
That bit is to open some weird screws, I've only seen a few of those and were in power supplies. You can also try with a dremel or similar tool (using the cutting disk) and make a small indentation on the screw and then use an regular screw driver to remove the screw, but it might damage the metal around the screw.
 
You could also put a crappy screwdriver in the screw and use some glue or JB Weld to attached the screw to the screwdriver. Once it's hardened carefully try to get it out.
 
dlegend said:
You could also put a crappy screwdriver in the screw and use some glue or JB Weld to attached the screw to the screwdriver. Once it's hardened carefully try to get it out.
Click to expand...

Yep...you need some sort of grip and then torque. If a screw bit will still fit in the screw head you could try to torque it out by pressing down firmly and gunning a power screw driver or drill.

Since you were able to ruin the screw head its clearly not stainless steel. Therefore, you could also carefully drill it out or grind it down with a dremel tool.
 
ZipZap said:
Since you were able to ruin the screw head its clearly not stainless steel. Therefore, you could also carefully drill it out or grind it down with a dremel tool.
Click to expand...

I like this idea the best :) how powerful a Dremel would I need? Could I get away with a 200 Series, or would I need something a bit more powerful?
 
Perhaps this can help: Remove-a-Stripped-Screw

In my experience, a screw extractor bit is necessary, but still will only work ~50% of the time. If you are CAREFUL, a bit of heat or solvent desigend to loosen screws can be uses, but obviously with the object you are repairing, not for the faint of heart.

Good luck.
 
eawmp1 said:
In my experience, a screw extractor bit is necessary, but still will only work ~50% of the time. If you are CAREFUL, a bit of heat or solvent desigend to loosen screws can be uses, but obviously with the object you are repairing, not for the faint of heart.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've been looking at a lot of these sites about removing screws like this, but they seem to refer more to larger screws, applying pressure etc... None of which I can really do with such a delicately small screw on a piece of expensive electronics. I feel like my only option is to use some small drill-type instrument (like a Dremel) to file it until it breaks free...
 
Find some powder scrub cleaner like Comit and moisten the tip of the screw driver (the comit grit gives the drive extra grip). Dip the screw driver it in and then apply pressure and try to TIGHTEN the screw a little first to break it free. Then you should be able to back it out. JB Weld is good stuff but would be a mess for this type of job. If it still won't come out you will need to drill it.

Old Aircraft mech trick!
 
So I got it sorted... :D

I sprayed a teeny tiny bit of WD-40 onto the end of a flathead screwdriver, but it looked as though it had all evaporated by the time I went back to the unit... However I'm guessing there was enough of a whiff of it to sort it out... Cos then I used the flathead screwdriver and started turning, and it was almost like the screw was saying to me "yeah I'm loose, I was always loose you idiot"...

:)

Needless to say, I will be replacing said screw with a new one, I have some spares. Thanks to everyone for your gracious help, hopefully I won't be needing any more today, I'll let you know when (if!) I get it sorted completely.

:D ta!
 
heheh... ;)

Okay so not out of the woods just yet! :( I replaced the hard drive (getting the standoffs out of the old hard drive were really tough also!!). With the new hard drive in place, I'm getting the message "Internal disk needs repair", although there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it short of "Erase".

Problem is, I've already formatted it (HFS+ Journaled) and copied all the old Time Machine archive files across using the Archive function in Airport Utility. Am I doing something wrong? Airport Utility says the correct sizes (Capacity 931.2 GB, Used 462.4 GB) but when I try to connect to the drive it just looks empty and says 503.31 GB Available.

Any clues anyone? Thanks again!

:-Joe
 
jowie said:
heheh... ;)

Okay so not out of the woods just yet! :( I replaced the hard drive (getting the standoffs out of the old hard drive were really tough also!!). With the new hard drive in place, I'm getting the message "Internal disk needs repair", although there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it short of "Erase".

Problem is, I've already formatted it (HFS+ Journaled) and copied all the old Time Machine archive files across using the Archive function in Airport Utility. Am I doing something wrong? Airport Utility says the correct sizes (Capacity 931.2 GB, Used 462.4 GB) but when I try to connect to the drive it just looks empty and says 503.31 GB Available.

Any clues anyone? Thanks again!

:-Joe
Click to expand...

I had to format the drive using the TC utilities in order for it to work. I don't think that you can put a pre-formatted drive in.
 
wpotere said:
I had to format the drive using the TC utilities in order for it to work. I don't think that you can put a pre-formatted drive in.
Click to expand...
I wondered if that might be the case... Thanks. I just hope I can copy the old backups back onto it afterwards. Here goes...!
 
Thanks all :)

I've just gone for broke... I don't have enough spare disk space anywhere else to copy all the old backups. So I'm going to just backup everything again from scratch, and once it's all backed up successfully then I'll erase and reuse the old drive.

I've got an off-site backup from about two months ago so that's something too :)
 
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