Strange problem never encountered before

[dojinacu]

At least I've never encountered before.

I recently tried to reformat my computer. I disconnected all peripherals including a second hard disk drive that I used for storage and an ATI video card. I also disconnected the primary hard disk drive (the computer was off) to get access to the secondary hard disk drive. When I went back to turn on the computer though, the computer was not "turning on" properly.

The computer turned on and was running but nothing was loading. I finally figured out that the hard disk drive wasnt being read and pretty much no peripherals worked either. The keyboard didn't light up, the monitor didn't get signal from the analog plug from the motherboard; the only thing that lit up was the mouse. I made sure the master cable was properly connected to the hard drive and it was securely connected to the mother board. The power cable was connected properly and I know the power supply worked.

I've tried everything but it simply won't work. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dojinacu

 

[spudnik]

alright let me see...

assuming your primary drive is the only thing connected at this point, is it set to Primary, Secondary, or Channel Select?

it should be in Channel select.

also, is the power cable plugged in to your HD? are you sure its in the right way around?

 

[dojinacu]

I'm not sure what Channel Select is, but if I have to change it through BIOS or any other computer program, I can't because the harddrive itself isnt loading.

The power cable is plugged in properly, I can hear the hard drive spinning around. It's just not loading/reading properly.

The hard drive is hooked up to the cable labeled 'MASTER', I don't know if that helps but that's all I know.

 

[spudnik]

at the back of the HDD there is a 6 pin jumper. remove the Drive and look at the back.

ascii art:

____________________________________________
      .                .                 .

      .                .                 .    
____________________________________________
     pri             sec                CS

the jumper will be between the top and bottom pins of either PRI, SEC or CS.

 

[dojinacu]

There's actually 8 pins on the back. The jumper is inbetween the cable that connects it to the MB and the power cable right? If it is then yea, I have 8 pins, the jumper is on the second set from the left. So I'm guessing its on the secondary set. I'll try putting it on Channel select and see what happens.

 

[spudnik]

right, 8 pins >.> <.<

 

[dojinacu]

Nope, that didn't work either. When I put the jumper on the Channel Select it still didn't load.

 

[spudnik]

silly question ... is your CD/DVD drives (if you have more than one) all set to Channel Select?

also silly question - this is an IDE drive i am assuming- do you have any devices plugged into any of the RAID slots?

 

[dojinacu]

My CD drive is cable select, my DVD reader/burner is set on Master (which I assume is primary).

There is nothing plugged in the RAID slots.

Everything was working correctly up until I disconnected everything to try to reformat. I didn't touch anything or change anything that I didn't need to.

Right now only my HDD, moniter, keyboard, and mouse are connected.

 

[dojinacu]

OK, I swapped out my mother board, got a new working HDD, got a new video card and I still get the same problem. The only things I left the same was the power supply, CPU, and RAM.

I have no idea what is wrong anymore. Can some one help me?

 

[managed]

Is this a Western Digital hard drive ?
Some of theirs need a different jumper setting if they are the only device on a cable than when they have another device attached to the same cable they are on.
Even if it is not a WD drive the following should work.
Take the hard drive out of the case and you should find a diagram of the jumper settings on the drives case.
Set it to Master and if there is an option set it as the only device on the cable.
Refit it and connect it to it's own cable, nothing else on that cable and plug the other end of this cable into the Primary IDE socket on the motherboard (may be called IDE1 or IDE0, you want the socket with the lowest number)
Power up and check that the Bios has IDE0 as the first boot device.

Does the PC boot up now ?
If that new Hard drive doesn't have Windows on it it won't boot but you should see some sign of 'life'.

 

[dragjack]

hmmm.. maybe a power supply problem? I had this happen on a work pc and it was the power supply unit that needed to be replaced.