invisible hard drives?

[badfileorcommand]

I have a gifted 400 Celeron computer w/o a hard drive. I have three older hard drives that worked fine in other computers either as masters or slaves. Would like to install one to get the computer running. I have lived in Cmos for days trying to get the system to recognize a drive. The shunt is on the correct pins, cable correct, used auto and manual info, but bios doesn't seem to know any other word except "NONE". I usually get the non-system disc error message, and with one hard drive it's on auto-repeat as if the computer had a motor. The computer is somewhat newer than the newest hard drive. Wouldn't think this would be a problem. This is the first time I've not been successful with auto-detect. (?)







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[swwelsh]

Check in the bios to make the IDE controllers havent been disabled. If they are enabled, try the second channel. If you still dont get anything, maybe the IDE controller on the motherboard is bad or the CMOS is corrupt. Try to find the cmos clear jumper and reset the bios. If all that fails, then you know why somebody else gave up on the machine.

 

[badfileorcommand]

I went through every line in the bios in every section to try and see the IDE controller issue and didn't find a thing. Pilot error along w/ an ample amount of stupidity on my part I assume. This computer was almost running once. I remember getting almost to the point of having a working OS when a tech on this site suggested I unplug all the memory and cards and start over w/ the install. That's when the trouble started. The computer hasn't been the same since. Maybe I goofed up something on the motherboard or ?

I thank you for you time and advice. Will continue to look for the setting snafu. Would bios defaults be OK? So far I haven't much luck.