It turned out that Santa had brought my son some PC games and as his machine was basically in bits on Christmas Eve I started to put it all back together.  Unfortunately I was a little too fortified with Christmas Cheer (Camel Valley Sparkling Wine) and I got the IDE cable of his hard drive back-to-front, thus breaking that one pin that lines up with the blanked hole on the interface. The pin was now 2 mm long and would not reach into its hole in the interface cable.

Here is how to fix a broken pin on an IDE disk drive:

·        Get a pin or needle used for sewing. 

·        Insert the pin into the correct hole in the interface card.

·        Remove pin and cut to length

·        Get a bar of chocolate

·        Eat the chocolate

·        Take aluminium foil from the chocolate bar and tear a tiny piece from it.

·        Pack the tiny piece of foil into the appropriate hole in the interface cable

·        Insert the pin into the hole in the interface cable -   thick end first.

·        Attach cable to disk.

·        Never remove cable

·        Never tell anyone.

I hope that helps.

Happy New Year.