I bought an Icecube 3.5 hdd enclosure about 6 months ago to house a 500gb drive. I never seemed to find the time to put it together and has been sitting on my desk the whole time. I've tried to put it all together but have run into a problem. It seems one of the screws to open the case is far too tight. So tight that I'm not far off destroying the head completely. Since it's so long since I bought it - and not sure if I still have the receipt, can anyone suggest how I might go about removing the last two screws from the outer casing? Thanx!

Being an all-metal enclosure, you can do things with it that I wouldn't want to see anyone else do on any other box

Turn the drive case upside down with the support-legs upwards. Apply a small drop of fine machine-oil or a teensy drop of WD40 (use the nozzle) to the edge of the stubborn screw (at the join where screw meets case) and leave it to sit for five minutes.

Get a quality size-0 or size-1 cross-blade screwdriver with a solid plastic handle and a normal hammer. Put the tip of the screwdriver into the head of the screw and give the head of the driver two fairly sharp, hard whacks. Shift your grip on the hammer up to near the head, then give the driver-handle a few more light-ish taps. Try moving the screw again. If it still doesn't want to budge, give it a few more hammer-taps and try again. Repeat until the screw becomes loosened enough to be removed.

Hi Brains!
Thanx for your reply. Despite thinking your reply is dangerous, it actually seems to make sense. I hadn't thought of trying to lubricate the screw. I'll try it tomorrow with some WD40. I have a screwdriver I use for most of my computer assembly, but I've no idea the size, just that it fits all my hardware parts and has a plastic handle. It seems to do the trick. Is that alright to use?

It should be okay.

The first couple of hard whacks are meant to act a bit like a punch, and push the blade further into the screw-head. The light taps are intended to apply vibration to try and loosen whatever is holding the screw in so tight.

*sigh*
Well I tried like you suggested but I still can't get those two damn screws loose! It looks like the thread in the head is just about gone now. I'm thinking I might get a metal drill bit and drill out the top of the screw to free it. I know that means permanent damage to the case, but it's not much good without a drive in it. My only worry is that if I do that, that perhaps the outter casing will vibrate a lot if it isn't fully secured with the screws. Although I'm sure I could wedge some bluetak in there to help.

You really should buy yourself a good toolkit - Torx , Phillips and slot head screwdrivers plus pliers etc , then use the right one !
In hardware , one size does not fit all !
That's why you are having problems now.

Stewie

That's all well and good, but I'm trying to fix the problem at hand.

EDIT: I got the case open using the drilling method. Only problem is that I have the wrong damn enclosure. The person at the shop said this one was suitable for a SATA hdd, but the insides only support PATA. So I've had to buy an adapter from eBay to swap it over. Oh well almost sorted.